Closer
by M.K. Teirney
Summary: ON HIATUS. For 67 days. He'd sat in that little stone cell alone, for 67 days. Counting things. Doing random sums and divisions in his head. Making friends with the bricks. And slowly going mad.
1. Prologue

Prologue: Peter

His head was fuzzy...

The first thing he noticed were the coats - they were awfully familiar, and completely out of place. He reached to push them out of the way, and in doing so he noticed a second thing: he was suddenly much smaller, limbs and fingers shorter than they had been moments before. Out of the haziness in his head popped a forgotten phrase - _Alice in Wonderland_.

The third thing was that threshold of the wardrobe was a bit nearer than he'd expected - the fourth was that he was about to fall on his face - and the fifth was that all three of his siblings were about to land on top of him.

Oomph.

"Susan, will you get off my leg!" A groan. "I would if you'd get off my arm, Ed!"  
>"That's not me, that's Lucy-"<br>And from Lucy, a plaintive wail. That was enough to make Peter shove the other two off his back and onto the floor next to him - he took Lucy's little hand, but hang on - it was much too small - hang on -

"Hang on - what -"  
>The three younger Pevensies looked up at him expectantly - but it wasn't the Pevensies that he'd been with just moments ago. These three were just children - they were -<p>

"Yes. You've come back. Welcome home."

Peter whirled around. Professor Kirke stood at the door, cricket ball in hand, smiling at them.

They sat silently in the austere light of the formal dining room. Susan was staring hard into her cup of cocoa. Edmund kept blinking and shaking his head, like he was trying to dislodge water from his ear. Lucy was curled into her chair, hands over her eyes and shoulders trembling.

Peter bent to grab a newspaper from the pile next to the hearth. 22 June 1938. Of course it was. Why hadn't he been able to remember that a moment ago?

Because for the four of them, fifteen years had passed since 22 June 1938. They'd been about to celebrate Peter's 30th birthday. And now he was half that age. Again. But he was still 29, wasn't he? Those fifteen years had been real, hadn't they? It was like trying to remember a dream - the details kept slipping away from him.

He stared around the room. Susan, all of twelve now, he remembered, looked leggy and awkward; Lucy was baby-faced and barely four feet tall. And Edmund - the last time Edmund had looked like that -

It was strange, because he had been riding all afternoon in the Western Woods with another Edmund, when he had been another Peter. Now all he could see was the Edmund who had sent a cricket ball through Professor Kirke's window this morning. This Edmund had called Peter and Susan beastly at breakfast because they'd tried to make him eat his whole bowl of porridge ("It _is _ghastly, but some children don't have anything to eat right now at all."). This Edmund had lied to their faces last night about going through the wardrobe, had made both Peter and Susan red in the face from shouting, had made little Lucy cry herself to sleep. When he'd been riding with the other Edmund a few hours ago, all those memories had been nothing, long-forgotten, distant dreams...

Now they were now. And the other Edmund, the other Susan, the other Lucy - they were the dreams. He didn't want to believe that those lives were gone - they couldn't be - but they certainly weren't here, in England. He'd left them there, in Narnia...

Best to get back straight away, then. The others jumped slightly as Peter's voice broke the silence: "I don't care what the professor says about not being able to get back through the wardrobe. There's got to be a way. Somehow."

Professor Kirke chose that moment to re-enter the room with his second mug of cocoa in hand. All three older Pevensies looked up at him in anticipation, Peter a bit guiltily. He opened his mouth to apologize, but the professor waved him down.

"You can't use the wardrobe. It's only for children, and - well, you're not exactly children anymore, are you?"

None of them knew quite what to say to that.

"Please, sir, don't you know any other way?" Susan asked after a moment had passed.

He hesitated again, an exhausted look washing over his features. He took a long drink and wiped his glasses clean before speaking.

"Well...there is one possibility."

Every head shot up, even Lucy's. "Go on!" Edmund urged.

"...There's an older way than the wardrobe. Older, even, then the magic rings that we used when I was a child. It's very secret - truly ancient - and not entirely nice, I should warn you." He squinted, hands twisting. "There's something ... dark, about them. Not evil! But rather dark."

"We're not afraid, sir. We can handle it. We have to get back," Edmund said, and Peter's heart leapt. For a moment he heard only the Narnian Edmund, the one always who said exactly what Peter was about to say, except that Edmund tended to put things a bit more bluntly. But when he looked at Edmund's face, it was the child's face, fierce and hungry, the not the king's face, that looked back at him.

The professor continued. "I'm quite certain you can, Edmund. It's just that - the way back is rather complicated. I'm fairly certain I know more about this old way than anyone else on earth, but there are certain mysteries about them that even I don't understand..."

Peter frowned, narrowing his eyes. The only light in the room came from the fireplace; from his position at the far end of the table, the old professor's face was cast with shadows. Peter sat back down at the table across from him and waited for Professor Kirke to make eye contact with him before speaking.

"Sir, what is it you're describing exactly? Is it an 'it', or a 'them'?"

The professor sighed slightly and set his mug to one side. "It's a set, a set of pieces for an ancient game. Four pieces here, four in Narnia, and dozens or hundreds more in worlds besides. As I understand it, they work something like magnets, pulling towards each other with supernatural speed and inexorable force. If you're holding on to one when it activates, you'll be pulled back through into the world it's from. You have to use your own charge in order to activate the pull between the sets, of course. Otherwise they lie dormant."

"How do you mean, 'charge'? Where did you learn all this?"

"Don't interrupt, Ed," Peter chided.

"I'm only curious-"

"I'm sure he was about to say-"

"Indeed, I should have explained right away. The charge, the connection, is in your _blood_. Every individual person has a certain - polarity, and when you spill a bit of your blood onto one of the pieces, it'll take you back to where your polarity is orientated. I found out the messy way that my particular polarity is toward Earth. I cannot use any one of the four pieces to return to Narnia."

"Then will _we_ be able to?" Susan interjected.

The professor examined each of them in turn, before continuing. Peter glanced around. They were all entranced.

"Yes. I expect you will. Kings - those of royal blood - have multiple polarities, because their blood is tied in some way to that of every other ruler in the universe. Anywhere a king has lived, another king can go. If you have a few drops of royal blue blood, you can simply think of where you'd like to go, dip the piece into the blood, and the piece takes you there. In very ancient times, kings raced through all the different worlds, chasing each other back and forth, to worlds' ends. They made it a game, hunting each other down. There's an old rhyme: _Queens and Kings may hold the keys/ Kings and Queens may go'ast they please_."

He paused, and Peter knew he was pondering how much to tell them. When no one said anything, the professor spoke again. "Kingsblood, the game was called. You need the blood of a King to play, and the object of the game is to obtain as much of it as you can."

Lucy shivered and Susan made a face. After a moment, Edmund made to interject again, but the professor held up a hand, frowning.

"I learned all this from a dying man - more than that I won't say." Everyone's eyes widened, except Edmund's.

"No, I was going to say that 'goast' isn't really a word."

"Shut it, Ed," Peter said.

"Well it isn't!"

Professor Kirke chuckled. "Indeed not."

"But you say there are _four_ -" Susan said.

"In the original set for this world, yes-"

Peter looked up at him sharply: "Then that's perfect -"

"It would be, except that I only ever found three," he said, his face turning tired again. "I spent years and years trying to retrieve the last, but with no success. You can imagine how intensely those who know what they are would desire them. Very dangerous, to let them fall into the wrong hands. I was very fortunate to find the ones that I did. I've been guarding them as well as I can ever since. Hiding them. Just the three."

The professor leaned back in his chair and took another long drink of cocoa. A long silence followed his words, Peter, Edmund, and Susan exchanging tense looks. Lucy was scrubbing at her nose, staring hard at the floor.

"Well three's better than none," Peter ventured. "I say it's worth a try."

"But how do we decide which of us goes through?" asked Edmund.

There was another awkward silence. Peter hated to admit it, but he was half-hoping someone would offer to stay behind. He knew no one would, though. Why should they? Narnia was home to all of them. He was beginning to suspect that the others were all waiting for him to volunteer. As the oldest, perhaps he ought to...

"We could take it in turns, perhaps," Edmund stated. "If these things work as Professor Kirke says, we ought to be able to pop over and back at will."

"No guarantee of that, my lad, but theoretically yes, you should be able to."

"So who goes first...?"

"What about a vote?" Susan finally suggested. Lucy had been sitting quietly through the entire conversation (Peter had begun to wonder if she was falling asleep), but that question got her full attention. "How could that possibly be a good idea?" she snapped.

"She's right, it's stupid -" Edmund began.

"Don't be rude. It's the only way that's really fair, isn't it?" Peter cut in. "And you said yourself we have to get back."

"Perhaps a silent vote," Professor Kirke said. "You can each write down a name and pass it to me, and if one name gets more votes than the others - I won't even say who it is, I'll just come find the three of you at a time when the other isn't around. You can go and come back and the fourth might never know -"  
>"Of course he will though, he'll know by the time we go home at least-"<p>

"He or she," Susan corrected Edmund.

"It wouldn't be personal, Ed, it's just who's going to be most useful when we're there -" Peter started, and Professor Kirke finished for him: "-Or perhaps the three that go through using the old way can ask Aslan to bring the fourth through His way. I'm certain He would help you."

"...that makes sense, I suppose," Edmund said.

"So we're agreed then? Whoever stays behind won't be a sore loser? No feelings hurt?"

Edmund eventually nodded; Lucy made no comment. Susan stood to get writing materials from the desk. Her voice and bearing took on the authority she had often adopted when dictating regal announcements or issuing commands to subjects.

"Then take a paper and pencil, and make a quick decision..."

But when she'd handed them out, everyone simply looked at each other awkwardly, no one writing anything just yet. Susan slumped back into her seat; Peter was sure she had just realized how uncomfortable the decision was, having just realized the same thing himself. He didn't want to think about what all was going through the others' heads.

Who ought he to choose? Not Lucy, surely; they all knew they fought with each other horribly when she wasn't around to smooth out little arguments, and she'd be inconsolable if left behind. He wouldn't hurt her like that. So it was Edmund or Susan. An hour ago he'd have taken Edmund along without a second thought; if events turned violent, he'd certainly want him there. They were more than brothers in Narnia, they'd been brothers-in-arms, so accustomed to fighting at each other's sides that fighting without Edmund was disorientating; on the rare occasions when he'd been in battle without Edmund, he'd felt that it was like trying to walk across a rail with one hand behind his back. But...did he really need Edmund if he had Lucy? She was - or had been, he corrected himself - a capable fighter, and a healer as well. As a king, Edmund's counsel had been tactical, prudent, discerning - but Susan was those things also; Susan would put Peter right if he needed it. Plus she was entirely...trustworthy.

Just as the word came into Peter's head - he didn't even have time to think about whether it was true - Edmund glanced at him, his face blank. They looked away quickly. Edmund scribbled something down, folded his paper, and passed it to Professor Kirke. Peter frowned again before smoothing out his expression - his gut told him Edmund had just written 'Peter.' Mind made up, he scrawled out 'Edmund' and passed his paper down the table. Susan, small flush barely noticeable in the firelight, twirled her pencil for a few long moments before hiding her paper with her hand, writing something very quickly and passing her paper in as well.

It was just Lucy now. She hadn't even picked up her pencil. Edmund nudged her to hurry up, receiving a disapproving glare from Susan for it. Raising her head, Lucy looking at each of them slowly, deliberately, before turning her eyes to her paper. She made a few small marks, then carried it down to the professor's end of the table. As she moved to set it in the pile, she covered all four papers with her palm for a moment, then grabbed them up, striding back down the length of the table to toss them all into the fire before the other three could think to say anything. She stared into the blaze, watching the folded papers curl and burn before turning to face them again, a fire of her own smoldering in her now-dry eyes. She looked more queen than little girl, still child-size but every inch of her radiating Narnian grace and power. When she spoke her voice was angry.

"Four thrones. Four. It has to be all four, or none at all. No shortcuts."

Peter swallowed, the protest he'd been about to voice dying on his lips. He hadn't wanted to admit it, even to himself, but he knew she was right, had sort of known all along, and by the cowed look on Edmund and Susan's faces, his siblings agreed. Lucy spoke again, a bit more gently this time.

"Aslan brought all four of us to Narnia, and he sent all four of us back. I want to go back as much as any of you, but we'll just have to wait for Him to send for us again. Professor Kirke, thank you for your help, but we can't accept it. You just keep these things you've got, this game or set or whatever it is. Guard it well. Even from us."

With that she left the room.

As her footsteps echoed down the hall and up the stairs, Peter sensed that the last little line of hope had just slide out of his grasp. He couldn't help feeling utterly disappointed, indulging the feeling in a long, tired sigh. All thoughts of pieces and games and blood left his mind, as one single thought came to rule it. They were stuck here.

They were stuck here, then - so be it. All they could do now was make the best of it. Perhaps those other lives, the ones Peter had thought he'd left in Narnia, weren't completely lost - he'd seen little flashes of them in his siblings' faces all throughout the night.

And then a thought struck him - he'd seen them, but had they seen him? He had been the High King, the sword of the realm, father to its people. Had Susan, Edmund, or Lucy seen that even once since they'd returned?

Certainly not in the last quarter of an hour, when he'd voted to leave his own brother here in England while the rest of them jaunted back off to Narnia. He suddenly felt a sick hungry curiosity - who had the others voted for? If Peter voted for Edmund and Edmund for Peter, then Susan's would have been the deciding vote...

He looked up at her, but she was staring at her hands, just a timid twelve-year-old again. Peter suspected she was waiting for Lucy to cry herself to sleep before heading upstairs.

At that moment, Professor Kirke rose and excused himself to retire to his study, but not before giving them all a last look. "She's right, after all - Kingsblood isn't a game for children. I am sure Aslan will send for you eventually, in his own time. In the meantime, do try to remain as child-like as possible. While you can."

As soon as he was gone, the others shuffled a bit and made to leave as well. As they were standing, Peter caught Edmund smirking at him. "We _could _just leave Lucy behind."

It was a little too soon. Peter flushed angrily, trying to think how to respond, but Susan beat him to it. "Like you did last time, you mean?" She said coldly, grabbing their empty mugs and heading for the kitchen.

"Alright, I was only joking," he said in a small voice, watching her leave. Peter felt Edmund's eyes on his back as he too turned to leave, following Lucy's path up the stairs. He was too angry and exhausted to attempt to talk to the old Edmund right now, the one who'd been so terrible all summer, the one who'd sold the other three to the Witch in exchange for candy.

But that boy wasn't the 'old Edmund' anymore; it was the only Edmund now. The new Edmund, the one who had been king at Peter's side all those years, had never really come back through that wardrobe door, no more than Queen Susan or Queen Lucy or even High King Peter. Those Kings and Queens - they were all in still Narnia. Still in Wonderland.

And Peter had to get them back.


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One: Edmund

"Congratulations, Pevensie."

Edmund settled slowly into his chair, peering through the cloudy afternoon light filtering through the window at the greying face of the man across the table. The man's expression was difficult to read. His name, according to the letter Edmund had received from him earlier in the week, was Mr. H.C. Durbin, senior undersecretary of educational policy for the British government. Durbin looked about eighty, skin sagging with wrinkles and and eyes perpetually half-lidded, but Edmund was quite sure the man had been a soldier once. His grey hair and mustache were neat and trim, posture perfectly straight. More than that, there was a deliberation and efficiency in his movements and speech - something about how he clipped his consonants and how he applied pressure to his knife with the pad of his finger as he buttered his roll. Probably no one else would have noticed.

The man eyed him back, suspicion knitting his brows together. _Definitely a soldier_, Edmund thought. Edmund slouched slightly, wondering if possibly the man had just been thinking the same thing about _him_. He kept his grip on his own knife firm - the slouch should be enough to throw Durbin off the scent.

"Thank you, sir," he finally responded. "I confess, though, that I'm at something of a loss as to why I'm receiving this honor."

The old man's eyelid twitched as he settled his red cloth napkin across his lap. He glanced around the room once before he answered, adapting his tone to fit the casual lunchtime murmur of the other patrons scattered around the restaurant.

"Your academics ought to be full qualification. Top marks, in all your classes. Except history, eh?"

Edmund frowned. History again. In his private opinion, history - English history - was almost unlawfuly dull. His siblings tended to disagree, Susan especially; history was her forte. Perhaps that's why he'd never bothered learning much of it: if he couldn't just look up some date or occasion, he could simply ask her. She always remembered those sorts of things, and choosing not to remember them himself cleared out mental room for all the other things he actually did need to remember. It was a great policy in practical life, but it didn't serve all that well in class, where the dictates of educational policy reigned supreme over practice.

Since this man likely wrote educational policy, though, Edmund felt it might be discourteous to elaborate these views. Edmund attempted to look politely bashful: "I find history to be - rather trying -"

Durbin chuckled without smiling. "No matter that. The real reason for the award is your exemplary attitude toward your peers."

That seemed so unlikely that Edmund forgot courtesy altogether. "You're not serious."

"Oh yes."

"But I've been in - about half a dozen fights in the last month."

The old man smiled tightly now. "Yes. That's why we noticed you, in fact."

Edmund scowled, trying not to feel nervous, but the situation was a strange one. This man - Durbin - who he had never seen before ten minutes ago, who had asked him to come to London today to receive a good conduct award, a special certificate detailing said award, an expensive luncheon, and two tickets to the weekend's rugby match, and who hadn't yet touched his mixed greens, was unquestionably strange. Something just felt wrong about him. Edmund put down his own salad fork and leaned back in his chair.

"You're telling me I'm receiving a good conduct award for bad behavior?"

"Indeed."

"Why's that?"

Durbin cleared his throat once before answering - Edmund noticed his eyes dart around the room again. _Checking for listeners_.

"This award - represents more of an _opportunity_ for you than a commendation. You see, we - the British Government - have been looking for a boy like you, for some time. We're looking for a boy with fighting skills beyond his age. You've literally beaten all your competition. The boy should also be clever, beyond what his experience would suggest. He'd also have a certain - air, about him - as though he'd traveled to distant lands. Very distant."

The man paused to take in the effect of his words, but Edmund kept his expression carefully blank. He was getting an inkling of what this man was implying, and it didn't bode well. A long empty moment passed before Durbin seemed to decide to take a new approach. He lowered his voice even further and leaned across the table.

"I'll be straight with you. I know you don't belong here. In this world. I know you've been looking for a way to go back."

Edmund couldn't help himself - "_go back_?"

"Tell me, Mr. Pevensie, what would you do if I offered you a button to press - a button that would solve all of your problems, and return you to the place where you truly belong?"

"...excuse me?" He was buying time to think.

"All you have to do is agree to help with one small task - and I'll give you that button, no further questions."

Edmund took a moment to pinch his eyes closed, pressing his index finger and thumb into his eyelids, shaking his head a bit before responding.

"I don't know what you're talking about. You've got the wrong boy."

"Do I?"

The waitress arrived then with their meal. As she cleared away their salad course, they scrutinized each other through narrowed eyes. Neither sad anything until she was well away, and then they both started to speak at the same time.

"I need to be going -"

"I noticed from your academic file that your physical, mental, and social health has been dramatically altered by the events of the war," Durbin continued, even as Edmund began to rise. "Or, I should say, the alterations _coincided with _the events of the war." He paused to draw a file from his case, and Edmund sank back into his seat, his heart suddenly racing. He knew what was in that file.

"What does that have to do with -"

"Behavioural report says here that three years ago Edmund Pevensie was a normal child, average grades, bit of a bully, occasionally rude to teachers, a few pranks here and there. Then the evacuation. _Then_ - I'll quote this part - 'a marked change in student's behaviour: prefers the company of teachers and of his brother; shies away from contact with his peers' ...that was two years ago. From last year: 'student excels academically but appears disengaged in class. Occasionally picks fights with other students.' From this year: 'student plunges recklessly into violent situations. Student is often involved in fights with his brother - sometimes for him, sometimes against, always loudly, always violently.' "

Edmund bit his lip. Those fights - not the ones with the other boys, those hardly mattered - but the ones with Peter -

They'd been alright together, back in Narnia. He and Peter and the girls. They'd been more than alright, they'd been wonderful together, for _years_. They'd grown up together, four best friends, happy to do anything together, happy to forgive each others' shortcomings, happy to forget all the unhappy memories of childhood and England, where they'd fairly driven each other up the walls. But coming back through that damn wardrobe had re-opened the old fissures, not obviously and not right away, but categorically. All those memories of their pre-Narnian irritations and rivalries and animosities - and Edmund was at the heart of them all - all those memories became real life. Of course they'd fought.

If Durbin noticed any hesitation on Edmund's part, he let it pass without remark. He waited while the waitress refilled their glasses, then continued: "Health report confirms the assessment and adds a number of interesting symptoms - recurring fever, paleness, headache - 'student reports difficulty sleeping at night and concentrating during the day; moreover, student is under weight almost to the point of malnourishment, yet refuses to eat ' - and school nurse says this condition has gone on for _three years_...and then there's the matter of the panic attacks..."

Edmund flinched. This was what he had known was coming, and hadn't wanted Durbin to know, hadn't wanted anyone to know. He considered making a grab for the papers, demanding that Durbin tell him how he'd gotten the reports in the first place. Suppressing the urge, he tilted his glass idly, speaking slowly and keeping his voice as cool as possible. "I thought that file was supposed to be confidential."

The old man raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly, without warmth. "Nothing is confidential to me. Least of all the school reports of a second form boy. You know, the details in these reports perhaps better describe the behaviour of a grown man, specifically one with something on his conscience... perhaps one with a fairly robust death wish..."

Edmund pressed his lips together before replying. "_That's_ a fairly wild conclusion. Are you always completely inaccurate, or is it just that your position in the government requires you to make a certain number of erroneous conclusions, to fill some sort of quota?"

Durbin glared at him but ignored the bait. "Does your family know about your - 'poor health'?" The old man gave him an odd look. "Stupid question, obviously not; no mother would send her child away to school in such a state. So you've been stealing these reports away from your parents, lying when they ask how you are, all to cover up your thanatic episodes...because if they found out about the sickness, they'd find out about the trauma, wouldn't they? The one thing you absolutely must hide..."

Edmund slammed his hand onto the table, courtesy be damned. A couple eating nearby craned their necks curiously. He made himself lower his voice: "What the hell are you implying?"

Durbin's patience had also diminished, it seemed. He gave Edmund a very dark look before replying in the same tone.

"Simply that I know your story, Edmund Pevensie, your whole story, as well or better than you know it yourself. I know that you haven't forgotten your past, and that your siblings haven't either. These last three years you've become increasingly desperate to escape that past, to redeem yourself, but with little success. You need help, and I can give it to you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he hissed.

"You know exactly what I mean. I offered you a magic button to press; it wasn't a rhetorical strategy. You know the game. You help me play it, and I'll burn this file. I present the good conduct award to your parents, and I'll give you the button that will let you - and your siblings - return home. Otherwise..."

"Blackmail."

"Not blackmail. Just an incentive."

It was time to end the conversation. "What exactly do you want from me?"

Durbin examined him carefully, and spoke in a clear, level tone. "All I need is a bit of blood. Your blood. Just a few drops."

"You're mistaken," Edmund snarled, clenching his knife. "You have the wrong boy."

"I don't suppose a sense of duty to country can interest you in becoming the _right _boy?" The old man's voice became aggressive. "This service could be immensely useful to His Majesty's war efforts, you know. No? Very well. If loyalty to King and country doesn't entice you, and I can't persuade you with other incentives, perhaps receiving pecuniary benefits might serve? You must be loyal to _something._"

Edmund stood up, glowering. "You have the wrong boy."

Neither of them had even touched their food yet, but he strode away from the table, about to walk out the door of the restaurant - when a thought occurred to him that stopped him in his tracks. He wheeled around, marching back to Durbin and splaying his hands on the table as he looked him in the eye.

"But I'm not the only boy who fits your criteria, am I?"

Doyle smiled. "Clever deduction."

Edmund glanced around the restaurant, heedless of the curious stares of the other patrons, then barged into the next room over, searching, then the next from that - there he was.

His older brother was half-way through a bite of strawberry shortcake. He was sitting with a balding old man whose face was withered with wrinkles and age spots and two dark-haired, middle-aged men who appeared to be twins. Peter seemed to be on the verge of saying something to them, but he stopped short when he saw Edmund striding up to their table.

"Ed - what are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you, I think. We need to go home. Now."

But the ancient old man at Peter's table spoke first, his voice surprisingly squeaky. "Ah - Edmund, Durbin - why don't you join us?"

Durbin had followed Edmund to Peter's table and was now pulling up a chair. Edmund crossed his arms, trying not to feel quite so outnumbered.

"We need to go -"

But Peter held up a hand and turned back to the others, taking another bite of shortcake. He finished chewing, then spoke to the balding man. "I'm not saying I'll do what you ask. But once I'm in Narnia, how would I know what to look for?"

"_Peter-_"

"They already know, don't they?" Edmund just stared at him.  
>One of the twins cleared his throat. "He's English, for one thing. Our source said he was rather ...distinctive. And he'd have the pawn."<p>

_What the devil...?_ But Peter nodded curtly and grabbed Edmund's sleeve, pulling him away from the table just as Edmund was opening his mouth for clarification. "Thank you for lunch, Mr. Graham. I'll think over your offer."

"That's all we ask...son of Adam." The balding man's voice wobbled badly.

As they left the table, Edmund saw Peter slip his folded napkin into his pocket - probably full of the little chocolates and peppermints the waiter had brought out with dessert. _Just like him_, Edmund thought, to pocket sweets in the middle of being bribed by a bunch of government cronies. It wasn't a very nice thing to think, he knew, but it didn't stop it from being true. The insatiability of the older boy's sweet tooth was legendary. _Well, if Peter is going to just take what he wants from these people..._

They'd nearly made it to the door when Edmund spun on his heel again and marched back to the table. "I'll have those rugby tickets too, if you don't mind."

He knew he was being awfully impolite, but he didn't care. Without even looking back, Edmund knew Peter's mouth had just dropped open in surprise and exasperation. He spared a quick glance over his shoulder to confirm it though, as Doyle exchanged a look with the other men before pulling four tickets from his jacket pocket. Edmund nodded at the four men and returned to Peter. Together, silently, they walked out into the damp drizzle outside.

The silence lasted about thirty seconds.

"Are you out of your mind, telling them about Narnia?"

Peter's voice was authoritative. "We'll talk at home, Ed."

"You do remember what Professor Kirke told us about how dangerous this Kingsblood game is, don't you?"

"_Later. _I don't want to talk about it out here."

"And you know they could very well arrange to just _take_ our blood, right?"

"Edmund, _shut up -_"

"Look out -"  
>It happened in an instant. They were crossing the street. A car was veering toward them. <em>Too fast<em>. Edmund shoved Peter onto the sidewalk pavement out of the way, but stayed where he was so he could see the driver. One of Durbin's men - ?

"_Ed!_"

The car was less than five feet away. Edmund dove onto the sidewalk. The driver sounded the horn and sped off. Peter was stumbling to his feet.

"Are you crazy!"

The driver hadn't looked like any of the men from the restaurant, but Edmund hadn't really had a great view of his face - his cap had been pulled down almost over his eyes. Would any of them have had time to run out of the restaurant and into the car -

"Edmund! Are - you - insane?"

"We need to get inside. That probably won't be the only one."

"_What_ -"

Edmund cut him off. "If I'd jumped early, that car would have ridden onto the sidewalk to hit both of us. Besides, I wanted to see his face."

They were standing outside a bookshop. Edmund swerved through the door, Peter on his heels. The clerk at the counter looked at them curiously, but Edmund half-ran past him, yanking open the service exit at the back and ignoring the clerk's protests. He strode into the back alley and rounded the corner onto another street. There was a tube station near here, he knew - if they stayed out of the main streets -

"Ed, stop. What are you doing?"

"I'm not sure we should go home. They'll be able to find us there -"

"They who?"

"Who do you think?" He walked briskly down the street, keeping near the building walls and eyeing everyone they passed. They rounded a corner, and then another. "We both get invited to a mysterious lunch with complete strangers, these strangers tell us they need our blood, and two minutes later a car tries to run us down. It's a pretty straightforward case -"

"You think that car was Graham and his people?"

"If that was his name."

"That man was about nine hundred years old -"

"All the more reason for him to hire a hit instead of trying one personally -"

Peter tugged him to a halt.

"Ok stop. In here."

They ducked into a greasy-looking coffee shop. Edmund wasn't eager to stop, but the place looked dingy enough to hide in for a few moments at least. They sat down at a window table as raindrops began to slide down the glass. Edmund peered around the curtains to stare up and down the street. Peter began again, in a rough whisper.

"First, that car was probably a coincidence. None of those men at lunch would have had time to get in and follow us just like that. Second, I don't understand why you're so quick to distrust them. They made a good offer. Third, and this should be first, is next time _don't stand around waiting for a car to hit you_ -"

"What did they tell you? What did they offer?"

Peter sighed, waving away the waitress who came to get their order. "One minute please, ma'am." He looked back at Edmund, his voice low again and excited. "They said there's a way all of us can get back into Narnia. All four of us. All they wanted was for us to send something back through when we got there."

"And you want to do it?"

"Of course I do. We belong there, in Narnia..." Peter's expression became wistful, but there was something flinty in his eyes at the same time. "...and even if we didn't get back through... we could use the money."

Edmund's jaw dropped. "You must be joking."

"It's basically a win-win scenario." Peter's voice was defensive and a tiny bit whiny now. "We get what we want, either way. I think we should at least try."

"I won't. Not a chance."  
>"Why not? Why shouldn't we trust them?" Peter snapped.<p>

"Probably because the last strange person to call me a 'son of Adam' and offer to cut me a deal -"

"God, it always goes back to that with you, doesn't it?"

Edmund's nostrils flared, a sure sign that he was about to lose his temper - but at that moment he saw what he'd been watching for. He pulled the curtains closed and signaled to Peter to stop talking.

"What -"

He nodded toward the window. Peter pulled the curtains open just slightly, and his eyes narrowed. A dark-haired man - one of the twins who'd been at lunch - was walking down the other side of the street, turning his head this way and that, as though he were looking for someone. Edmund was pretty sure he knew who.

"...paranoid..." Peter murmured, but he dropped the curtain anyway, just as the man passed their cafe and disappeared around the far corner of the street.

"What if I'm not? Those men at lunch - they didn't - they didn't look right to me. There was something off, something wrong. I'm sure they're following us - they might already have the girls."

Peter rolled his eyes. "If they did, why would they still be following us? Why even offer us money at all if they were just going to run us down at first chance?"

Edmund didn't answer. He'd been trying to work that part out himself.

"Come on. You've been reading too many mystery novels. We'll talk more at home."

Edmund's lip twitched, but he nodded. They stood to leave.

"Ah - there you are." Peter and Edmund both froze. The voice belonged to the dark-haired twin, who was standing in the doorway.


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two: Lucy

By any normal standard, it had been a terrible day.

Lucy Pevensie stepped off the train, onto the platform, and into a puddle three inches deep. As her shoe and sock immediately filled with water, a huge groan escaped from somewhere just under the thick knot in her throat, the groan that always meant that the knot was going to become a sob pretty soon. She hurriedly shook the extra water from her foot and knuckled her hairline while squeezing her eyes shut, a trick to ward off tears she had learned from observing a certain older brother on his own bad days.

And what a bad day it had been. She had woken up twice last night after vague, uneasy dreams, which had made her sleep so late she had missed breakfast. Her favorite jumper was in the wash, so she had tossed on an old scratchy one that had once been Susan's for about five minutes before Susan decided that chartreuse was not her color and would suit Lucy much better. By the time she had finished dressing, Susan was yelling at her to get out the door before she made them both late for school, which they both were anyway, despite flat-out running to the station to catch their train. Frizzy-haired and winded, Susan had ignored all of Lucy's attempts at conversation for the rest of the day. School had been awful and dull for them both, as usual; worse, even, because the outdoor games festival the whole school had been looking forward to had been cancelled on account of the predictably unpleasant March rain.

During maths she had been staring out at the storm from her desk near the window, lost in memories of times and places where the rain was impossibly old, old with faces and memories, old like the ruins of a palace or a marble monument made by ancient people; her dreams from that morning had floated in and around this old kind of rain that was heavy and warm or sweet and icy, mixed with the pounding of normal English rain that never felt like anything but damp and cold; she had been lost in dreaming, halfway into a real dream, when her maths teacher Mr. Thexton had slapped her desk sharply with a ruler. He had berated her for a full five minutes in front of the class for being "impossibly stupid," reminding her that her grades would reflect her poor habits. Lucy's anger had broken through the surface, then; when chastised, she would usually nod meekly and cry away her feelings later (well, hopefully it would be later), but this time she slammed her own hand down, called the teacher a horrible word she had learned from another older brother, and stormed out of class, straight to the headmaster's office since she knew that's where she would end up anyway. She had wound up with a fortnight of detention, a note for her mother to sign, and an imperious frown from a still surly Susan.

Lucy shivered now, angry at the memory and angry again now that her foot was soaking. She glared at Susan's back, fifteen feet ahead, and paused on her way out of the station to glare up at the heavy black clouds as well. More rain tonight. Rain every night. Rain ruined everything.

They marched back to the Pevensie's grey little house without speaking. When they got to the gate, everything looked normal as you please at first glance, but as Lucy followed Susan through the front door and into the hall, Susan grabbed her sister's wrist in warning just as Lucy was taking in the tiny wrong details in the room. Something was wrong - traces of mud tracked across the otherwise clean-swept floor, a chilly dampness in the air as though the door had been open moments before and only just been closed, and several photo albums that ought to have been on their shelf in the parlor strewn across the bottom steps of the stairs. There was no light on in the house, except what dying greyness filtered through the drapes, and a tiny orange line under the closed kitchen door.

No one but their mother ought to have been home - but they could hear low angry voices coming from the kitchen. Susan looked down at Lucy, raising a finger to her lips. They both jumped slightly as a muffled thud sounded from the other room, as though something heavy had fallen to the floor. Silently they tiptoed across the hall. They entered the kitchen at the same time and together let out little yelps of surprise.

There was Peter sitting across from Edmund, both of them engrossed in a what looked like a heated but silent staring match, brows contracted and arms folded on either side of the table.

Lucy clapped her hands, her fear from moments ago and bad mood from school melting instantaneously in a rush of excitement. "What are you two doing here?"

The boys had been away at Eton since Christmas, and weren't expected back until Easter holidays next month. Edmund's glare flicked toward her for a moment then back at Peter, who had leaned his chair back and sideways to hug her, his frown vanishing as quickly as her own had.

"Surprising the living daylights out of you two, of course! We've only just got in. Mum went to pick up a few things for tea." Peter's smile was genuine, but a sort of tired tension remained creased across his forehead.

"Biscuits and Gloucester cheese, I suppose?" Susan piped in, smiling at the pair. It was family lore by now that Peter wouldn't usually take tea if there weren't biscuits to go along, and Edmund never took a normal tea at all, preferring to nibble on a fist-sized cut of cheese. The boys' faces cleared slightly, remembering, as Susan moved to squeeze Peter's shoulder and Lucy bear-hugged Edmund's neck.

"What were the two of you saying as we were coming in?" Lucy asked as she sat down next to Edmund at the table. "We heard something crash - have you had a row or something?"

It was the wrong thing to say, she realized too late. The two boys glanced at each other, both clearly still angry but neither volunteering any information. Lucy bit her lip and looked at Susan to press an inquiry, but Susan was carefully examining both faces for clues, and Lucy could practically see her sister's analytical mind already forming the conclusion that Lucy's hasty words had just blundered into. Clearly there had been a row, and most likely it was a continuation of the same row that had occupied the brothers for the past three and a half years - and it always seemed to end with someone yelling 'I'm in charge here!' or 'You aren't the boss of me!' In Narnia, Peter had been bossy, of course (a High King had to be), and Edmund had made fun of him for it - in Narnia that sort of joking was just a given; it was healthy, and they'd all enjoyed it. In England it was mean. And it broke the girls' hearts.

They all bickered, of course; but Peter and Edmund were the worst, at each others' throats at the drop of a hat. Sometimes literally, in fact; none of the Pevensies were physically timid when they were in a temper. The crash they'd heard seemed to have been Peter's trunk, which was lying upturned next to the table, a few papers scattered next to it.

For a long moment the kitchen was awkwardly quiet.

"Frank as ever, Luce..." Susan tutted, settling herself into the chair next to Peter, and trailing away when no one said anything. Lucy could almost see her searching for some topic that would pique the boys interest and break up the resentment simmering in the silence. She was searching for one herself, but as usual Susan took advantage of her ability to think of something, to think of anything, before Lucy did. "Anyway, I think it's _our_ argument we ought to be discussing now."

"What's this, then?" Peter asked; Edmund raised an eyebrow.

"But I didn't even know we were arguing!" she spluttered.

"Lucy has been in trouble at school again," Susan reported, crossing her arms and resting them on the table.

Edmund laughed. "Go on then! 'Again'? I didn't know it was possible for anyone to accuse that angel face of making trouble!"

Lucy gave a nervous giggle, but the two older Pevensies frowned. "Headmaster told me she hasn't been paying attention in class," Susan began. "_And _she used foul language. In class."

"What bloomin' codswallop."

Peter crossed his arms too. "It's nothing to joke about, Ed. Let's have it, Lucy, the whole story."

She glared at Susan, but dropped her gaze to the floor a moment later, breathing hard, a sad wobble in her voice: "It wasn't my fault though!"

The time had come to play her trump card. She sniffed and let a tear form in her eye. She didn't have to fake it; she never did. On days like this, especially, she felt as though any and every emotion she could possibly have was right there in her heart, ready to jump up onto her face at a moment's notice. Expression - expressing emotions - she thought of it as her curse and her gift, extemporaneous and uncontrollable. None of her siblings seemed to share it, exactly. The grown woman in her knew it was a bit silly sometimes, and a bit unfair, but the little girl who actually did the weeping never cared much about silliness or fairness. They were all looking at her expectantly, the boys with sympathy and Susan with skepticism.

She took a deep breath. "It was in maths. Mr. Thexton was yelling at me in front of everyone. He called me stupid because I sometimes daydream a bit in the afternoons. He thinks I'm slow."

Edmund snorted and gave a low growl. "F-ing nincompoop."

"That's what I said!"

Edmund exploded with laughter as Peter attempted to gasp in dismay. "Not really, Lucy! Did you really say that?"

She blushed, feeling equally proud and ashamed of herself. "I didn't actually mean to, it just sort of slipped out... I mean, he asked what I really thought of him and his class, since I never seem to pay attention, and I just told him what I thought..."

Edmund laughed even harder, which made Peter lean across the table to punch his arm, though she could see him fighting off a grin of his own. "Don't encourage her! It was very wrong, Lucy."

"I know..." she was smiling now as she scrubbed tears from her cheeks.

"Promise you won't do it again," Peter asked, recovering some solemnity.

"I do, I promise."

"Because if you break your promise, the High King will have to decree punishment, you know," Edmund said, smirking at Peter.

"Oh _no_..." Lucy giggled.

Peter's tone became grave as he looked her in the eye and took a deep breath. "Oh yes. Death by tickling."

"This is serious, you two!" Susan huffed as the other three laughed. "Lucy, you have to swear you won't, swear you'll be more serious about school. We're all bored with it, you know, but if you act up like this, people will start asking questions." Lucy noticed that when she said that, Peter and Edmund stopped laughing, but Susan continued her lecturing.

"A little girl like you shouldn't know words like - that one," she said, making a face. Lucy caught Edmund's eye - they both hated it when Susan lectured them about 'acting their age' and 'avoiding foul language' - and he slipped her a quick conspiratorial smile, which made Susan even huffier. "Lucy! Be serious. Swear you'll be good."

"Ok, fine, I swear!"

"Swear on something important!" Edmund cut in.

"I swear on..."

"Swear on Finchley's rugby team, on their winning season."

"Not that serious, Ed," Peter warned. Susan rolled her eyes.

"King and country, then. Swear on the glory of the British Empire!"

"Edmund!"

"Swear on Churchill? Swear on Churchill's pants!"

Lucy saw Peter and Susan looked at each other, both trying not to laugh, as Edmund's suggestions became more and more irreverent and off-colour. Ever since their father had left for war four years ago, Edmund had taken to blaming anything and everything on prime ministers or MPs or the glory of the British Empire. Lucy and the others were genuinely patriotic, of course, but that didn't mean they couldn't laugh at their country once in a while, right? Her high emotions were working themselves out in hysterical giggles, and since they all knew it was usually either giggles or tears with Lucy, neither of the older siblings seemed inclined to interrupt them.

"Swear now, Lucy. On pain of death by tickling."

"What's all this swearing and death and tickling, in my house?" Lucy had been laughing too hard to hear Mrs. Helen Pevensie enter the house. She walked into the kitchen, arms full of groceries and a happy smile on her face. Hiccuping, Lucy jumped across the kitchen to give her mother an elated welcoming hug, nearly unbalancing them both as Helen struggled to keep the groceries from falling to the floor. Peter rose swiftly, at her side in an instant to relieve her of the groceries, starting to unload them onto the counter as Susan went to the cupboard for the kettle.

Helen squeezed Lucy warmly and turned to give her older children thankful looks, reaching around Susan's waist to light the stove. "Did the boys tell you why they're home?" she asked, a note of parental pride evident in her voice. Glancing back at the table, Lucy saw Edmund's face darken at her question, but it was Peter who answered.

"We've been presented special awards for good conduct and character," he said, a bit smugly, reaching over to grab a piece of paper lying next to his overturned trunk. He leaned against the counter reading aloud, smiling as their mother moved to read along over his shoulder.

" 'To Edmund - (and Peter) - Pevensie, in recognition of his academic excellence, outstanding moral character, unimpeachable good conduct towards teachers and students alike, his superior example of leadership and sportsmanship, his friendship, freely bestowed...' "

Lucy and Susan exchanged surprised looks, amusement growing as the list went on. 'Unimpeachable?' 'Good example?'

...Peter was popular in school, Lucy knew; charismatic as ever, he picked up loyal friends quickly, but those friends were generally of the loud, swaggering, and belligerent variety. Peter was by no means vicious, but he was good at violence, and the other students recognized it and capitalized on it. According to Edmund, Peter's group tended to follow the battle lines that had already been drawn, playing up Peter's power within the clique to lead fights against the other, more thuggish, factions. Everyone in the room except Mrs. Pevensie knew about these little battles. Edmund was even involved in them, from time to time. Lucy had seen them in a handful of fights together when they stayed with the girls on holiday, and though she hated watching them, she couldn't help feeling that it was better that they fight together against anyone else than against each other, which was otherwise too often the case. Even Susan at her most fastidious couldn't really object when she saw how Peter lit up and became himself again when taking on a bully or defending some other kid - they just all preferred that he enact those particular leadership qualities during rugby or football.

As to Edmund's 'freely bestowed friendship' - well, Lucy didn't know the details, but she was fairly certain he didn't have many friends at school at all, that he preferred to keep to himself. After they'd returned from Professor Kirke's house, he'd stopped going round with his old friends entirely (which Lucy and the others approved of, since those friends had been rather nasty), but it seemed he'd never bothered to make new ones. He was the one who needed the other siblings the most - without them he was entirely alone... But only Lucy could see that. Peter and Susan were used to blaming Edmund for anything, which made a certain kind of sense given that before Narnia he'd usually been to blame for almost everything - but he was different now. He teased still, but he never picked on her maliciously, as he had before.

She should know; she'd always borne the brunt of it. The older two were always forgetting that Edmund had nearly been destroyed that time before, a long time ago... So whenever Peter and Susan picked on Edmund now, she did her best to fight off their stings - but too often their alliance become an 'us against them' thing, instead of 'all four together', which Lucy desperately wished it could be... Whenever she sided with Peter and Susan, Edmund would frown and stomp off to his room or for a walk or anywhere to get away from them...

_Even Edmund doesn't know how much he needs us_, she realized -

She blinked and turned to look at him. Peter was still reading from the award. By the expression on his face, Edmund seemed to be aware of the irony in what Peter was saying, but he didn't seem amused by it like the girls. Peter hadn't noticed anything.

"It's signed by the Minister for Education himself; we had lunch with some of his secretaries. You even know one of them, Mum, it was Mr Creebourne from down the street, and his brother. Did you know he's a twin? Good bloke. He even caught us up after we'd left because Edmund had forgotten his award at lunch."

Peter snickered a bit and shot Edmund a smirk that Lucy couldn't interpret, to which Edmund scowled, and said sulkily, out of nowhere - "You didn't recognize him either. It's not my fault I haven't seen him since I was a kid, is it?

Mrs. Pevensie, who had been busy reading the award, didn't seem to have heard him. "Oh yes, there's his name at the bottom! He works in the Ministry of Education, does he? I'd forgotten. The most terrible thing, about his wife, did you hear? " Her eyes lit up as she laid out bread, butter, biscuits and cheese on the table, her voice taking on the low quick tone she used whenever she had some juicy tidbit to share. "She ran off with some French soldier about six months ago when she was working in the hospital there, and now _he's_ decided to marry some dark foreigner too! I think she's a sweet lady, but Mrs. Winters, bless her heart, says it's a _revenge_ wedding. Would you believe it! And did you hear..."

They all exchanged smiles as Susan brought over the tea. Mrs. Pevensie was the most wonderful mother in the world, a paragon of feminine virtues, they all agreed, but she did have rather a passion for gossip. The children had often joked that her three favorite words were "Did you hear," but they all generally enjoyed listening to her stories anyway, seeing her get excited about the twists and turns of neighbourhood politics. Susan was usually her best listener, lending her ear with interest every evening at teatime; Lucy, however, often tuned out rather quickly once she found something else to think about. This time her thoughts stuck on that word 'wedding'...

She stirred her tea, settling her cheek into one hand. She'd almost had a wedding, once. In Narnia. Three weeks before they'd stumbled back into England, she'd gotten engaged to handsome young Tae... Tae, son of Trevin, Duke of some minor Archenland principality she couldn't even remember the name of now. It had been a secret, even from the other Pevensies... they'd been planning to announce it on Peter's birthday. She smiled at the memory - some present! But she was sure her brothers and sister would have been excited for her...

They'd all pursued their little paramours from time to time - all except Susan, really, who had always been too intimidating and reserved, scaring off potential lovers with queenly intensity (Lucy had told her time after time that she ought to lighten up, but Susan never really relaxed at their court festivals and balls. She was always off managing something or other, tablecloths or dishes or something like that). And Lucy hadn't been the first to be proposed to, actually - Peter had been the apple of every court lady's eye, Susan had had that little thing with Rabadash; one rather domineering lady from the Lone Islands had once proposed to Edmund seven different times before he'd resorted to exiling her from the country - an incident which his siblings had never let him forget, of course. Before Tae, Lucy had always had a full dance card (Susan's idea, naturally, introducing dance cards to Narnian balls), but none of her suitors had been quite so kind, so handsome, so affectionate...

It had ripped her heart open to be separated from him - how heartbroken she had been! - but she remembered, too, that she'd been a little nervous of what marriage meant for her family anyway. Even if she'd continued to live in Cair Paravel after the wedding, it would never have been just the four of them again; it would always be different because she was married and the rest were not... That was why she'd begged Tae to keep their engagement secret, because she'd been trying to find a way to make it right, make it feel less like she was breaking their family into pieces...

She'd never found it though. When they'd gone through the wardrobe, she'd felt that awful heartbreak; when she'd made them all promise not to use Professor Kirke's game to return, she'd felt righteous indignation... the righteous indignation came easily. It always surprised her that her siblings obeyed her so quickly when she was like that, as though they'd all been waiting for someone to say what she'd just said. In the moment she'd been sure she was right, that she was speaking for Aslan, even - she'd been actually angry, actually brokenhearted -

But in the days and weeks and years that followed, she could never quite forget that a tiny part of her had actually been relieved, too.

This of course made her feel immensely guilty later on, as she thought of Tae, alone, and as the thought came back to her again and again that it was her selfish little wish to avoid growing up entirely that had made Aslan send them back, that _she_ was responsible for dragging her siblings away from their happy life as rulers in Narnia and back to the drudgery of childhood in England. When they were all together, like today, they usually managed to make it feel like old times again - but she couldn't pretend things were as good as they had been. They'd all changed since they got back, all gotten a little darker somehow - Peter getting into fights; Edmund becoming more and more cynical and brooding, often going off on his own for hours, absorbed in some idea or puzzle in his head; Susan burying herself in Milton or Cicero, or practicing Beethoven or Bach for hours, wistful sadness sounding through even in the lightest tunes... But it was worst when they fought - Peter and Edmund, particularly - because they'd never fought like that in Narnia. Was her selfishness responsible for that...?

And worst of all, it hadn't been just selfishness - it had been fear... she'd loved Tae, but she couldn't deny that she'd also been afraid, a little bit. Lucy the Valiant had been _afraid_.

But she'd never told her siblings that, never told them anything about the proposal or engagement. They all had their secrets; she knew Peter and Edmund had one now...

And she had been just a kid then, just a little girl who'd laid in bed crying out her heartbreak for three days after they'd left Narnia, Susan holding her hand the whole time as she cried for Tae and the beavers and Mr. Tumnus and all the rest. She'd cried for three days straight - and then she'd gotten up and played cricket with her brothers because it was sunny out. The heartbreak was too weird and cramped for a child's heart. Knowing what she knew about adulthood, about love and kisses and even lust, had made her feel confused, complicated, but it was surprisingly easy to forget all those complications during a game of cricket, or tag, or climbing trees or any sort of play. Tae, love, kisses, were only a vague dream now; in fact his face had been in her dreams just last night...blurred but affectionate, teasing her gently, like he used to...

It was only a dream, but it was still a sad dream.

"Lucy...Luuucy..."

Peter was snapping his fingers in front of her face. She hadn't even noticed him sit down. She looked up, face colouring. All four of the others were grinning at her.

"Trouble paying attention, dear?" her mum smiled.

"Er - yeah..." she grimaced slightly, glancing at Susan, who she was certain would bring up Lucy's detention now, but Edmund spoke before Susan could say anything: "We were just saying how the awards Peter and I got came with rugby tickets for tomorrow. Four tickets."

"Oh! How exciting!" She gave Edmund a grateful look, but it disappeared when Mrs. Pevensie spoke again.

"What did you girls do in school today? Did you receive any special awards?" Her mother smiled again warmly.

"Er..." Lucy's heart began to race.

"Actually, I think it's time Lucy and I started our homework, if we're going to be at the rugby match tomorrow."

Lucy head shot up, a surprised, grateful smile of her own flooding her face.

"That's a wonderful idea, Susan. Boys, why don't you get started unpacking your things, I'll clear this away..."

They all stood, Edmund grabbing up the dishes and automatically moving to help their mother, since he hadn't helped with preparation. It was a small thing, but it made Lucy's heart warm and full, thinking about how naturally they all took care of each other on days like this. The fights, the dreams, the confusion - none of it mattered so long as they had a few moments of happiness together... on days like this.

Days like this. She'd forgotten the bad start entirely.


	4. Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Peter

Peter lugged his trunk into his old bedroom, tossing the award certificate he was still holding onto his bed and closing the door slowly behind him. The room was severely neat and a little grey, as it always was before he and Edmund arrived home to make a mess of the orderly twin beds and clean-swept floor. He usually hated seeing it like this, but right now it was perfect - he needed some quiet.

His hand went to the folded cloth napkin in his pocket and the cold little object inside it. His mind went back to the events of a few hours ago, his lunch with Mr. Graham...

* * *

><p>"Do you know what this is?"<p>

Peter stared at the black pawn in Graham's shaking hand.

"Have you ever seen something like this before?" the age-spotted face across the table asked him forcefully.

"...It's a chess piece."

Graham pressed it into Peter's palm. "But have you ever seen one like _this_?"

"No...I don't think so." The little stone chess piece was about half as tall as his pinky finger, and inky black like a piano key. It was unusually heavy, and there was a line of strange markings around its base, like an inscription, but otherwise it looked like any other pawn.

"This, of course, is no ordinary pawn," said the twin sitting at Peter's right. "Our - experts - tell us the inscription says something like 'Back' or 'Home.' Something about returning..."

Graham gave a mirthless, wheezing chortle. The other twin, the one on the left side of the table, continued. "Its exact properties are unknown, but we've noticed that it reacts rather strangely to certain conditions. Immersion in water, for instance," he said.

With a shaking hand, Graham gestured for Peter to return the pawn to him. Graham held the pawn over his wine glass for an instant before letting it drop - and as it hit the wine inside, a small puff of sparks rose from the surface of the liquid. Before the sparking noise drew the attention of the other patrons, the old man dipped two fingers in to pull it out. The pawn was unchanged, but the wine had turned milky white. Peter reached out a hand, amazed.

"No, don't touch-not yet."

"What happens if you drink it?"

The twin on the left smirked at his brother. "We've decided against testing that. I'll show you what it does to flowers though."

He plucked a flower from the short round bowl of violets that served as the table centerpiece, broke the flower in half, and squeezed some of the liquid from its stem into the wine glass. The wine - or whatever it was now - seemed to shiver slightly. Stirring it carefully, he raised the glass over centerpiece, then poured the contents directly onto the violets. Peter leaned forward with interest, half-expecting the violets to shrivel and whither or perhaps explode, but instead the flowers curled in around each other, forming a little ring, and then - one by one, they laid themselves down on the bed of soil in a perfect circle. They looked - there was no other way to say it - like they'd fallen asleep - and then they flickered and disappeared.

Peter shot the twin a questioning look, but he just raised his index finger in response, nodding his head at the bowl. There was silence at the table for about half a minute more, and then one by one the violets reappeared and stood themselves back up, looking taller and brighter and more alive than before.

"It's like that with almost everything we've tried it on - plants of all sorts, a few birds once. They lie down, blink out of time, then reappear a moment later."

Peter's breathing quickened as realisation sank in.

"Let me see it," he commanded, extending a hand for the pawn, which the twin handed back to him after a quick glance at Graham. Working fast, Peter dropped the pawn into his own glass, fished it out a moment later with his fork, and set it on his napkin to dry. He grabbed his steak knife and cut a little slit on his index finger - heart pounding, he applied pressure - and smiled tightly as a drop of his own blood fell into the glass, causing the now-white liquid inside to fairly tremble.

Graham and the others looked as though they might like to interrupt him, but weren't sure what to say. Peter concentrated closely - it was just an experiment, just an idea that had popped into his head watching all those violets lay down _together _- but who knew whether this might work? He focused his whole self on one place - he spoke its name in a whisper - _Narnia__. _Wetting his lips, Peter picked up the glass, imitating Graham's movements of a few minutes earlier, complete with hand-trembling, though his was from excitement instead of age - and doused the violets with the liquid.

They collapsed onto the soil, then disappeared entirely. _Please let it work..._

A minute passed, and then another. There was a general intake of breath; everyone shuffled slightly in their seats. Finally, when it became clear that the flowers weren't going to reappear, Peter allowed a wide grin to spread across his face.

"Great Scott!" murmured the twin to his right. Peter looked up: the others were still staring back and forth between Peter and the now empty bowl, their faces a mixture of astonishment and delight. His own reflected the same, he was sure.

"But where are they?" asked the twin on the left.

"Narnia," Graham said in a low voice before Peter could say anything. "Isn't that right?"

Peter glanced around the restaurant, but no one was near enough to overhear them. "So you can use a pawn - _one _pawn - to take more than one person back?"

"Oh yes - so long as you dissolve the blood in liquid, it seems you can take any number of people back with you - as many as are touching either you or the blood mixture."

The twin on the left spoke again. "In fact this is the third proof we've had of that. The first time, two people used a white pawn - one from Earth - to go through to Narnia together. The second time, two came here together, using this pawn, which is Narnian..."

Peter's eyes lit up. "It's not one of Professor Kirke's, then?"

"Kirke?" Graham's brows contracted. "No - I've never heard of such a man. This pawn is most assuredly Narnian in origin..."

The twin on the right picked up the conversation as the old man trailed off. "You're curious, naturally, about who brought it through, who it was that told us so much about this fairytale land, this Narnia. They were the ones who led us to your family - who made it clear that you and your siblings have the kind of blood we're looking for. But I'm afraid we can't tell you their identities. Not yet, anyway. Not until it's safe."

"But they came through all right, the two of them, using just one pawn?"

The twin smiled slowly. "Yes."

His brother began again, his voice low and rushed. "This is the first we've seen of a King being able to send other things through without going himself though - !"

" - You've had this pawn a long time, then?" Peter interrupted.

"No," Graham cut in. "We only acquired it recently - but we've known about the existence of Kingsblood pawns for - well near fifty years now. The two who first discovered what they can do were the ones who went back together the first time. They never came back, you see." His face became doleful.

"But they could still be there, couldn't they? In Narnia?"

"We don't know - none of us have the blood to check."

"And you'd like me to find him for you."

"That's the idea, yes," said the twin on his left. "Use the pawn to go back. Find the man we lost. We will of course make it worth your trouble - you deserve a kingly reward..."

Peter returned to his dessert, pondering. When he said nothing, the two twins exchanged a glance, shrugging at each other. A moment passed where no one said anything.

Graham leaned forward then, his face sad and desperate, voice trembling.

"You don't know us. You have no reason to trust us, and that's wise of you not to until you do. But the man we're asking you to find was my brother. We parted badly... It's the most painful thing in the world, wishing I could see him one time more before I die, wondering where he is now and whether there isn't any way I can get him back, and knowing I'm too old and - wrong - to find him myself..."

The two twins shifted slightly in their chairs. Graham's gaze became intense.

"We all want the same thing here, as far as I can tell - a way _in._ And now we have it. You are welcome to keep that pawn as long as you like - it's of no use to us without your help anyway. All I ask is that you do your best to find him, my brother... and send him back, if you can."

Peter bit his lip, then took another bite of shortcake. The words echoed in his head - _we all want the same thing - a way in... _He chewed slowly, quietly, and when he had finished chewing he opened his mouth to reply.

That was when Edmund had interrupted them.

* * *

><p>A clatter and a mumbled curse from outside the bedroom door stopped his musing. He raised his head to find that Edmund had tipped over his trunk on the step of the threshold while trying to open the door, spilling his belongings - clothes, shoes, pencils, books - across the hallway floor. Edmund looked sheepish; Peter grimaced at him but said nothing, leaning over to collect a few pencils and pop a dog-eared copy of <em>Sherlock Holmes <em>onto Edmund's bed.

"Sorry Pete - short arms..."

"It's been three years, Ed. I don't think it's fair to blame your lack of coordination on being small anymore." He had meant to make the remark a joke, but his voice was surprisingly, snappishly bitter. He tried to put some friendliness in his glance, but Edmund's eyes were on the floor as he bent over to collect his things.

It was only then that Peter realised Edmund had been attempting to smooth over the row they'd had in the kitchen earlier. Peter had almost forgotten about it, he'd been so pleasantly distracted first by the arrival of the girls, and then tea with their mother and her gossip...

After the twin - Creebourne, their neighbour - had found them in the cafe to return Edmund's award (to which Edmund returned cold, curt thanks), Edmund had agreed to discuss Graham and Durbin's offer at home while they unpacked their things. But they'd started shouting at each other in the kitchen almost as soon as Mrs. Pevensie had left for the market.

Edmund was adamant about refusing the proposal. He'd pointed out that it was a terrible risk, given that they knew next to nothing about these men, didn't even know for certain that they actually did work for the government or how they knew about Kingsblood or Narnia at all... Apparently Durbin hadn't explained things as thoroughly to Edmund as Graham and the two twins had explained them to Peter - though even Graham's explanation had large pieces of information missing, Peter had realised as he attempted to recount all that had been discussed at his lunch table. Before he had even mentioned the pawn, Edmund had flung the fact that they had offered money in his face, calling it despicable, a 'betrayal of Narnian principles,' even to consider accepting the deal.

Peter had to admit he sort of agreed with him, although he'd yelled at Edmund not to be so bloody-headed and righteous about it. He knew how it must feel, to Edmund in particular...

But Edmund also acted as though money grew on trees.

He sighed, returning the napkin to his pocket and settling himself onto his bed as Edmund finished gathering up his things. Folding the award certificate neatly, he ran his fingers over its edges as he returned to his thoughts.

It would be different if they didn't need the money. It would be different if their father were home earning a wage as a surgeon again, as he hadn't since before the war broke out. It would be different if Peter weren't going up to Oxford next year, utterly dependent on scholarship money just to attend... And it would be very different if he hadn't overheard his mother on the telephone with his grandparents over Christmas, asking them for a loan they could ill-afford to lend, explaining to them in a quivering whisper that she had no way to buy groceries until the next installment of the army stipend arrived, a stipend that was nearly always too small in any case...

Yes, it would be very different if they didn't need the money. He'd reminded his brother of this in the kitchen, rather too vehemently he supposed, since he'd accidentally knocked over his trunk in the process of emphasizing the point. His gesticulations did little to remove the icy scowl on Edmund's face, and Peter, knowing that there would be no talking to him at that point, had settled into the chair opposite to return silent fire. The girls had found them there moments later...

And now Edmund wanted to declare a truce. Well, Peter could live with that.

"Edmund - " he tried.

"Just save it, Pete. I don't want to hear it."

There it was again. Complete refusal. It seemed like that was all he could expect from Edmund, these days. _These days_ - he caught himself, sighing again - he wished it had been a recent development, but truthfully Edmund hadn't opened up to him in ages. Sure, his brother would joke around with him if their sisters were with them; he'd still back Peter up in a fight more than half the time, if he was around, and usually waved him hello in the hallways, if they hadn't been having a row too recently, but Edmund never seemed to want to actually talk to Peter. He hardly ever wanted to talk to anyone, it seemed.

"Listen, Ed - "

"Why should I? You'll just do whatever you want anyway."

Edmund established himself on his own bed, opening his book to a random page. Peter watched his grip tighten against the cover, knuckles turning white.

Well, two could play that game. Silently Peter folded up the award again, placed it in his pocket next to the napkin with the pawn, and walked out of the room.

* * *

><p>He waited until it was black out and the others were fast asleep. Peter slid out of bed and crept down the stairs, napkin from lunch bundled in his hand. Noiselessly he let himself into the kitchen, flicked on a light, and filled a glass of water from the sink. Grabbing a tin from the cupboard, he packed a plate with biscuits. Glass and plate in hand, he sat down at the table and set the little bundled napkin in his lap, taking a deep breath as he began pulling the corners slowly open -<p>

"Midnight snack, is it?"

Peter jumped so hard he knocked his glass clean off the table; it shattered as it hit the floor. He stood immediately, glancing at the ceiling and listening for sounds that he'd woken anyone upstairs; the bundled napkin fell to the floor as he jerked up, and the pawn spilled out of it, rolling across the floor to rest next to Edmund's feet. As Edmund bent down to examine it, a curious look on his face, Peter lurched forward to retrieve it.

"Ah! - ruddy..." He'd forgotten the broken glass all over the floor. He hopped on one leg until his other foot landed on a few sharp shards. As blood from both feet began to spot the tile and blend with the spilled water, he winced and hobbled toward where the pawn lay, but he hadn't gone more than two feet before Edmund had tiptoed through the glass to push him back toward his seat at the table.

"Peter, sit _down_ - sit down before you fall down, you bloody idiot."

Peter shot him a glare, but Edmund was pressing him down into the chair with both hands. "Feet up. Hold on while I clear this away, then we'll work this out."

Peter wasn't sure what 'this' Edmund was referring to - the pawn, the glass in his feet, or the argument between them - but no matter what it was, he couldn't exactly walk away from the situation this time. He pulled his bloodied feet up next to him on the chair and began pulling out bits of glass as Edmund set about sweeping up the floor. Neither of them spoke as Edmund emptied the shards into the bin and pulled a first aid kit from the shelf above the icebox. He settled into the chair next to Peter.

"There. That's done. Let me see your feet."

"I can do it."

"No you can't." Edmund grabbed one foot and pulled it onto his own lap. Peter frowned, but he _was _making rather a mess of it himself - he'd been digging at the same shard for the past two minutes, but he kept accidentally smashing it further in to his foot.

Edmund grabbed a tweezers and had the embedded shard out in about five seconds. He wiggled the token of his victory in Peter's direction. "Small fingers, see?"

A truce. Peter drew a long breath, relaxing. They shared tired but relieved smiles before Edmund returned his focus to Peter's feet.

"You need to stop stepping on glass."

"_You_ need to stop jumping in front of cars."

"I didn't jump in front of it!"

"True enough - you barely managed to jump at all, did you, Short Legs?" Edmund scowled, which made Peter grin, lean back and shrug affectedly. "I worry about you and your suicidal tendencies, you know."

"I don't have suicidal tendencies," Edmund snapped.

"Oh really? What about the time when - "

"Can we just drop it please!"

Peter tried to smile good-naturedly, but he realized too late that he'd tapped one of Edmund's many sore spots... He'd been about to mention the incident from last winter, when Edmund's roommate had found him sitting on the ledge of his third-story dormitory window, holding his stomach and hyperventilating, mumbling something about how the inside of the room was too small. They'd spent the better part of a quarter hour trying to coax him back inside, but he hadn't seemed to have heard them at all. Peter had eventually climbed out the window himself and physically carried Edmund back inside, where Edmund had thrown up on his roommate and then passed out. Afterwards, Peter had never pressed him to explain himself, had in fact tried to make a joke of it, hoping that doing so would make the incident less embarrassing for his little brother - that tactic had worked often enough in Narnia - but it seemed Edmund was resolved to pretend it had never happened.

In truth it wasn't even the first time something of that nature had occurred since they'd come back to England; they both knew there was any number of ways Peter could have finished his sentence. Edmund had done his best to hide them, but Peter knew more about these little incidents than Edmund thought he did - he heard stories through the school grapevine, or from the school nurse as she queried him tiredly about whether there wasn't trouble at home...

It wasn't trouble at home, of course; it was Edmund's memories haunting him, memories of the nine weeks he'd spent in the care of the White Witch, nine weeks when Peter and Susan and Lucy had been sure he was dead... Those memories had ghosted through Peter's nightmares from time to time in the years since, but why they should still trouble Edmund so fully now, after so many years had passed...

Peter swallowed, wincing as Edmund dug at a particularly deep shard. He cast about for something to say, but Edmund laid the tweezers aside and gave him a quick, evaluating look before standing abruptly, crossing the kitchen, and reaching for the pawn.

"Well don't touch it!" Peter gasped. "Your hands..." They were stained with blood from Peter's feet.

Edmund glanced back at him, then crouched to look at the pawn, placing his hands on his thighs. "So that's a Kingsblood piece, is it?"

"...Graham gave it to me."

"-'Magic button' - huh..." Edmund snorted. He reached back to the table for the tweezers, using them to pick up the pawn, hold it in front of his face a moment, then set it next to Peter's plate. "And you were just going to take it for a spin without telling the rest of us about it?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "I _did _tell you about it, or I tried to earlier anyway - "

"How did Graham and all them even get a Kingsblood piece? I thought Professor Kirke had his eye on them -"

"This one isn't from Earth, Ed. It's from Narnia."

Edmund's head shot up. Peter continued, his voice low and excited: "They didn't say who, but they said two people used this pawn to come here from Narnia, not long ago. Two people, Edmund. With one pawn."

"And you believe them?"

"I saw it work. On some flowers, anyway, and it's supposed to be the same - "

"You mean you _made _it work. You used your blood. Didn't you? " Edmund said, sitting back into his chair and grabbing a handful of long white bandages from the kit, suspicion growing in his eyes. "And that's what they wanted..."

"It was just a few old men plus Mr. Creebourne from down the street, I think they were pretty harmless - "

"Peter, they _know_, they know all about us - they knew about the Witch, even -"

He raised his eyebrows. "You're sure you weren't just reading into it?"

" - It didn't sound like that."

Peter sighed and worked his jaw back and forth for a moment. Slowly he refolded the napkin around the pawn and placed his hand over it. "Well, if you won't let me use the pawn, perhaps we should give it back -"

"- No! No no no. I don't want _them_ to have it -"

"Then do we tell the girls?"

They both paused, then said at the same time: "Let's tell Susan -"

Peter smiled. "After rugby tomorrow."

"Fine with me."

Peter wrapped a long bandage around his foot, trying to phrase what he wanted to say next. "Ed...if we _could _get back - get back to that golden age for just a while..."

Edmund's mouth thinned, but he kept his eyes on the bandage when he spoke. "I understand... No, I really do. But - you know we can't just cut corners like that. Don't you? There must be some reason we're stuck here waiting... Maybe we'll never get back, did you ever think of that? Do you want to spend your whole life waiting and wishing for something that might never happen?"

"But it can happen - we can _make _it happen - "

"But I think we're meant to be at a remove - for now -" Edmund's voice was low and guarded. Peter gave him a long look, then made his decision. "We have to wait for Aslan, then."

Edmund nodded. "We wait for Aslan. I think Susan will agree..." His face became thoughtful as he spoke again, more slowly. "Peter, I know for sure, for damn sure, that we'll get back eventually - I just have this tiny feeling that it won't be until...-"

"Until after we die."

"...yeah."

Peter paused a long moment, considering, before replying: "...which makes sense of your suicidal tendencies."

"Yeah," Edmund said vaguely, then glared at him. "No! I don't have suicidal tendencies."

Peter raised his eyebrows again, but at that moment they heard footsteps on the stairs. Edmund grabbed up the first aid kit as Peter put his feet back on the ground, attempting to hide his bandages in the folds of his pyjama bottoms.

Their mother entered the kitchen, squinting in the light. "Boys...?"

Edmund spoke first. "Peter was just saying he didn't really care for the supper you made, so he was helping himself to a snack..."

Peter groaned internally, knuckling his temple as his mother's expression became sadly pained. It was a good lie - defensible, reasonable - but like most of Edmund's lies, it came with a sting attached.

"I can make you something, dear - "

"No - Mum - it's fine, it was delicious - " he attempted to shoot Edmund a glare, but his brother had already left the room, heading for the stairs. Peter swallowed. He suddenly realised he felt very lonely - that a few minutes of civil conversation with his brother was more than he'd come to expect from their relationship. "I just - I should go back to bed too."

Mrs. Pevensie sighed and settled into the chair Edmund had vacated, smiling wanly at Peter and squeezing his shoulder. "Finish your snack. Let him fall asleep first."

Peter smiled back at her. "He's still a bit of a pill, isn't he?"

She rubbed his back, yawning. "You have to watch out for him, sweetheart, but let him come to you. It's only sibling jealousy - he's envious that you're off to Oxford next year, so soon! But you'll miss each other soon enough."

She really had no idea.


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four: Susan

"Peter, are those the same pants you wore yesterday?"

He stopped in his tracks and glanced down at his trousers. "...Maybe..."

Typical Peter. Susan pursed her lips and glanced skyward at the patches of clear blue sky peeking through the dissolving clouds.

"What?" he whined. "You didn't even notice till now, and I've been wearing them all day."

Susan could think of several lines of argument she could use against this, but she decided she'd be better off picking another battle later on, on better ground. Too tiring for the moment. Normally she was fastidious about appearance - "Cleanliness is next to godliness!", as her old Gran would say - but it wasn't likely that old Gran or anyone else she knew would see her with her rumpled siblings right now. They were returning home after two long hours watching rugby. The boys, and Lucy too, got more energy from that sort of thing, but Susan had been bored stiff in the in the first fifteen minutes...

Scratch that last about not seeing anyone she knew. They were just nearing the train station when a gaggle of chattering girls in Susan's form spilled out onto the sidewalk. She had to stop walking abruptly to avoid walking into one of the them - Julia Harmer, a pretty blonde in Susan's English class. They backed away from each other quickly, careful to avoid stepping in a rather wide puddle on the pavement between them. It was one of those awkward moments where Susan dodged to her left just as the other girl veered toward the same side. They over-corrected together a few times before Susan stepped off the sidewalk entirely and stood still for Julia to pass. She could hear her siblings snickering behind her, but she was more concerned with the quieter snickers coming from the group of girls as they filed through the Pevensie siblings.

Julia Harmer, Angie Whetstone, Amelia Smith, Edith Creebourne, Deb Fitzpatrick - Susan knew all their names. It shouldn't matter what they thought - she'd told herself that more times than she could remember. Susan was a queen, after all, and these were just school girls. But at lunchtime and in the hallways and between classes, being a queen of a fairytale land didn't count for much. Everyone at her school possessed a certain amount of social capital - usually in direct proportion to how much they knew about invitations, hair, stockings, beaus - and these girls had more than anyone. Susan barely had any.

All of the girls ignored her completely, but one or two gave Peter a quick glance. He didn't seem to notice, though. Edmund and he had been in the middle of recounting a particularly exciting play (though again, exciting to whom?) when the girls had spilled out, but Peter had stopped responding. He was standing stock-still, staring back and forth between Susan, who was still in the street, and the flat puddle on the sidewalk. He barely even looked at Angie, who pressed his arm lightly and cooed "Hello, Peter," (in that butterfly tone she only used on boys and teachers) before she continued on up the street with the others.

Susan scowled. Of course Peter didn't need any conversation capital, unpressed pants or no - he was practically made of capital, and he hardly knew it. Next to him, Edmund was tipping his hat towards Julia, grinning and waving stupidly when she smiled at him over her shoulder. The other girls tittered and Angie called "Hi!"

Lucy began to laugh. Recovering herself, Susan swatted Edmund's fingers down and hit his arm lightly.

"What?" he pouted.

"You know perfectly well 'what.' You look like an idiot!"

"I do not! Technically _I'm _too old for _them, _you know."

"I don't even want to get into that right now -"

"It's simple math, Su - "

They were interrupted by a short _ahem. _Edith Creebourne had backtracked to rejoin the Pevensies. She tapped the still-staring Peter on the shoulder to get his attention, and extended an envelope for him to take. "I almost forgot - this is for you."

Edith's dark eyes met Susan's briefly before she spun around to rejoin the others. Since the Creebournes had no other children, Edith had often played with the Pevensies when they were younger. After the evacuation, though, when Susan and Lucy had suddenly become eager to play Princesses for hours on end, spinning long tales about courts and battles and other such things, Edith had quickly found other interests, and other friends... Susan blushed slightly at the memory, wondering if Edith had told the others about their fairytale games.

"Bye, Edith!" Lucy called. The other girl didn't look back. "What do you suppose that was about?" Lucy asked.

Peter finally looked up, glancing indifferently at Edith's retreating form before pulling the envelope open, receiving a thin papercut for his haste. With a quick _ow_, he handed Susan the envelope and flicked his fingers once before sticking the wounded one in his mouth. Susan didn't bother to read what was in the envelope. She knew from the crisp engraved paper what it contained - an invitation to Edith's father's wedding. Susan had had all the infamous details of his remarriage to a foreigner from Mrs. Pevensie last night. Honestly Susan didn't give two figs who married who and from which country, but it was always comforting to listen to her mother prattle on about the neighbourhood news. No conversational capital required for that.

"Big old crush on Peter, she's got," Edmund answered Lucy's question. "They all have."

"Oooo, Peter and Edith, kissing in a tree... do you fancy her, Pete?"

"What's not to fancy?" Edmund said, watched the girls retreating. "Those long lashes, that shiny auburn hair, nice slim legs..."

"Edmund!" Lucy gave a dramatic eye roll.

"...Other assets, too...though I think I prefer Julia's, myself..."

Peter, it seemed, had barely noticed Edmund or Lucy. He was staring into space again, hand in his pocket.

"Peter?" Susan asked quietly, stepping back onto the sidewalk.

"Suppose..." he glanced around for a moment, face intensely serious, checking that Edmund and Lucy weren't listening. "Susan, suppose we're not supposed to be waiting for Aslan - suppose he's waiting for _us_?"

She contracted her brows. "What do you mean?"

But he wasn't looking at her anymore. He was crouching beside a deep puddle on the ground. When he spoke, it was with the voice of command he had used ages before. "Take my hand."

She obeyed instinctively, crouching herself as she opened her mouth questioningly. He cut her off: "Take Edmund's hand. Edmund, take Lucy's right. Lucy, take my arm with your left."

The other two had stopped talking abruptly, staring down at the older Pevensies. Peter's fist was hovering over the puddle, fingers balled around whatever he had taken from his pocket, as he waited for the others to comply. "Come on, then!" he snapped. They jumped into action.

"Peter, what -"

But at that moment Edmund had taken Susan's hand and they'd completed the chain. Peter put his balled fist into the puddle, and the water immediately turned murky white. Susan started in surprise.

"What's going on-"

Before she could complete her question, her lids began to droop down of their own accord - she felt impossibly tired all of a sudden. She saw Peter smiling in anticipation and satisfaction, Edmund looking irritated as he tried to mumble something, and Lucy yawning hugely as she knelt on the ground. Her own knees hit the dirty pavement just as her brain began to shut down. As she dropped off to sleep, she realized that they must look a sight lying down in the middle of the sidewalk, in a puddle besides... She tried to open her eyes to make sure no one was watching them, but her sudden exhaustion was impossible to fight off. The last thing she heard were footfalls coming toward them...

* * *

><p>It was an impossible, wonderful sleep. Her mind was blank, emptier than it had ever been, but her heart felt warm, sunny.<p>

She woke to the sound of the ocean.

She was lying on a soft patch of grass in the middle of a tall clump of trees. The air was warm, the sky was bright blue - and everything felt blissfully familiar. Where was she? - she couldn't remember falling asleep - she couldn't remember anything - but she didn't feel worried, not yet. She could hear waves crashing, in a low peaceful rhythm, somewhere nearby - there were other sounds too, putting forth little melodies and harmonies, but nothing so purely musical as the waves. For several minutes she was content to lie there on the ground, eyes half-lidded, feeling warm and weightless, listening to the waves crescendo softly on, again and again...

...before realising with a start that the tip of a sword was slowly approaching the tip of her nose.

Her pulse quickened as her eyes flew open. A voice came from somewhere behind her head - presumably the voice and the sword belonged to the same person. "Are you a ghost?"

_What sort of a question was that?_

"No - and I'm not going to attack you either, so you can put that away, if it please you."

The sword's owner seemed to have come to the same conclusion. Susan sat upright as soon as the sword moved out of her way, taking a deliberately long moment to compose herself before turning round -

And, blinking in the bright sunlight, she found herself staring into the most fantastic face she'd ever seen. Which was rather impressive, considering how many fantastic faces she'd already had occasion to see.

"What be your business here?" the face demanded. She stood up, a little too suddenly, swaying slightly on the spot. The man took her elbow to balance her and spoke again, with more urgency in his tone.

"Lass - what be your business on Ghost Island?"

"Um - " her voice cracked.

What! _What's happening here, Susan_? She could feel herself flushing all over. Her ears felt warm, she realized, and as she flattened her hair to hide them she realized her pits were rather sweaty. Oh god. His fierce expression changed suddenly, and he spoke very slowly and precisely. "Good lady - have you powers of speech? Have you understanding of our language?"

"Um, Yea." He gave her an odd look. Oops - too formal. "Yes. I mean yes."

He smiled at her, still looking nonplussed, but pleased to get some response. That smile - she felt all her self-respect burbling hopelessly in the pit of her stomach as her heart throbbed. Oh god. Her heart was actually throbbing! She drew herself up, straightening her weekend skirt awkwardly; he drew himself up as well, and she took in a good view of his whole body... it was just as impressive as his face, she noted.

"Have ye a name, fair lady?"

"Yes. I do."

She shifted her weight, taking in her surroundings. '_Ghost Island'? _

He waited. She stared at him. He cleared his throat expectantly.

"Oh!" She cleared her throat too "- Yes. It's Susan."

"Susan!" he purred. "Enchanting. My name is Caspian. _Prince_ Caspian, son of King Caspian the Ninth." He extended his hand, which she took with a slightly trembling hand. She shook his quickly, just as he bent over to kiss hers. Still half-bent over, he raised his eyebrows at her, chuckling. _Idiot_! _People don't shake hands here_. She took back her hand rather quickly.

"I _am_ in Narnia, though?"

"Yes, of course..." He gave her a funny look, like he was evaluating her. "You must be named for Queen Susan of Old, then?" He was trying to put her at ease, she could tell, but it was difficult to stop her head spinning, mind whirling, heart pounding. "I didn't attend very well in my ancestry lectures, but I believe I had a great- great-aunt with the same name..."

That stopped the spinning. " 'Great- great-aunt!' " she repeated.

"A few more times removed, of course..."

"What! Named for 'Queen Susan of _Old_'?"

"Yes..." he said slowly, giving her another funny look she couldn't interpret.

"How Old?"

"Uh...well, I didn't attend very well in history lectures, either, but -"

"History!"

"Yes..." He was holding back laughter now, she could tell, out of politeness - and suddenly his expressions made perfect sense: he thought she was slow-headed! Outrage warred with embarrassment - the _nerve_ of him - though her behaviour in the three minutes she'd known him hadn't really suggested much intelligence, she could concede that much. She assumed an imperious stance, gave him as cool a glance as she could manage, and crossed her arms across her chest. "How _old_ do you think I am?"

It was his turn to give her a confused look. "Fifteen, I suppose? Fourteen?"

"I'm sixteen!" Well, she would be next month, but close enough. "And you're what, eighteen?"

"Twenty, actually," he said, casually brushing some dirt from one of his boots. Susan wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Caspian sniffed and looked around them for a moment, listening; apparently satisfied, he took a few steps toward her and leaned against a tree. "I remember being sixteen - I ran away from home that year. Killed a man for the first time, too. Excellent age..."

Lovely - she was alone in the woods with a murderous runaway stranger... a gorgeous one, though, whatever his other faults...

Caspian's eyes lit up suddenly. "The same age as the Princess, actually!"

Her eyebrows shot up. "The Princess."

"Yes!" As he went on, Caspian's face became dreamy. Susan's became rather stony. "I suppose you haven't met her yet - I only met her a few months ago, myself, but she's perfect, just lovely, a dream come true. She's inspired me. You'll be wonderful friends, I'm sure."

That struck her as something of a wild conjecture - she'd only known Caspian for a few minutes, and she was already certain she wasn't interested in becoming friends with his lovely, dreamy wife. "If you say so..."

He didn't respond, staring into the trees around them with a happy smile on his face. She searched for something else to say... "So, a few months - how long have you been married, then?"

"Oh no!" he gasped, startled. "No! We're brother and sister."

"Oh! Right, of course...!" Her heart started thumping again.

"Siblings."

"Right! Siblings sure are... great." What on earth was she talking about? She rubbed her elbows quickly, looking around for Peter or Lucy or Edmund. "My siblings - I don't suppose you'd like to meet them? I'm sure they're around here somewhere..."

"I'd like nothing better. Reep, why don't you - Reep?" He glanced around at his feet for some reason before giving her a sheepish look. "Uh - I forgot my guard again, it seems. Let me just collect them before they worry."

"Certainly - I'd better find my brothers and sister. They're around here somewhere, I think..."

"Why don't you look for them - we're on Ghost Island, also known as Cair Paravel Island -"

"Cair Paravel!"

" - We're on the west side now, so you can't get too lost. I'll find my guard and meet you on the ruins of the south beach in a quarter of an hour's time, just through there, by the water."

He was off before she could say anything. but she suddenly realised she had bigger concerns anyway. Where _were _the others? How had they even come back - was she here alone? At Cair Paravel, if that's where she was? She stared around looking for clues, but except for the roll of waves the woods were quiet. Figuring open air would help her search more quickly, she trod through the moss until she hit sand. She slipped her shoes off - she'd come back for them later - and set off across the sand at a jog, staring round. They were indeed on an island, or at least a peninsula - she could see the shore of the mainland about fifty yards away. There was still morning fog hovering over the water, obscuring part of her view, but she thought she could make out some distant activity - had the others landed on the mainland? She'd been holding hands with Edmund and Peter, and they'd had Lucy - how had she lost them?

She'd come back here and try to cross if she didn't find them on the island first. She began calling their names softly, hoping one or the other of them would hear her and come bounding out of the woods. Her jog quickened to a run.

It was at that moment that a sound echoed around the cliffs and over the fall of the waves - a sound she'd never expected to hear in Cair Paravel, of all places.

Cannon fire.


	6. Chapter Five

Chapter Five: Edmund

* * *

><p>Somehow, it always came back to this.<p>

Every time he closed his eyes to settle into sleep, every time he began to dream, and woke shaky and sweaty - every time, he returned to the cold little stone room in the lower basement of Her castle. Four and a half feet by six feet and two inches. He'd measured it out with his fingers, sitting there day after day - for nine weeks.

For 67 days, actually. He'd sat in that little stone cell alone, for 67 days. Counting things. Doing random sums and divisions in his head. Making friends with the bricks.

Going mad.

When he was awake, it felt like years and years ago; in fact it had sort of been years and years ago - four years in England time, but nineteen counting Narnian time.

Nineteen years, but when he fell asleep, it was all around him still, as though he'd never left at all.

He'd paced around that tiny cell day after day, waiting for meals, waiting for the Witch to come speak to him, waiting for them to bring him awful news about his family, waiting for anything at all. Even the worst they did was never so bad as having to sit there bored and stiff and sore and starving all day, with only one clear thought in his head.

One clear thought.

_I made a terrible mistake.  
><em>

* * *

><p>How long had he been asleep? It felt like months - it felt like he'd been back in that cell for months.<p>

But he wasn't there now. He was warm, for one thing. He'd never been properly warm in the cell.

Edmund shook himself awake, squinting into blinding sunlight. He was lying on his stomach, vision full of grass and - _violets_, oddly. There was a chess piece right next to his face, a little white pawn that looked like something he'd had all his life, but forgotten about for years... A chess piece. Like Peter had had...

His breath caught in the back of his throat - he suddenly recognised this place, this feeling - they were home.

They were back!

Well, _he _was back. But the others had been with him; they ought to be around here somewhere...

He heard a piercing shriek. _Lucy_.

Immediately he pocketed the pawn and got to his feet with soldierly speed, pushing off the ground and into a sprint as soon as he was upright. Surroundings: trees, loose rock, ocean, stone walls - ruins? - turf, beach, and there, already sprinting into the clear blue spray, was Lucy. She was still shrieking at the top of her lungs, and when she saw Edmund she shrieked even louder, bolting out of the ocean to jump into his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Woah! Easy, Luce!"

But they were both laughing and smiling too hard to really say anything. He hugged her tighter and spun her around, which made him over-balance and spilled them both onto the warm sand. He sort of crushed her arm when he landed, but he wasn't sure she'd even felt it. She just kept laughing.

"Home, Ed! We're _home_!" She breathed happily for a moment, then pushed him off of her and ran back toward the water. She jumped in and out of the tide with little excited hops. Edmund got to his feet, squinted at the sharp white sparkle on the water, and took several deep breaths. Looked to be about ten or eleven o'clock, east-facing beach, sun high enough to be about midsummer -

And then he was hit full in the face with a handful of slimy green-brown seaweed.

"Lucy!"

She laughed, dancing in the surf. "Well don't just stand there!"

"Do you know where we are, exactly?"

"...Do you care, really?" She gave him a cajoling pout, and began backward into the deeper water until she was up to her hips. "Come on, Ed, please... please please please..."

He held his stern, older brother gaze for about five or six more pleases, her voice getting higher and higher with each one. It was getting a little ridiculous, the way she played the baby card. He had to stick his fist over his upper lip in what he hoped was a reprimanding pose to hide the beginning of a smile.

Suddenly a wave rushed over her shoulders, and she shrieked again and fell face-first into the foam. That was the end of his hiding - he burst out laughing as she came up spluttering.

"Oh, _ha ha_," but she was smiling. "Come _on_!"

Edmund grinned and pulled his shoes off, rolling up his sleeves. Setting his things aside, he waded into the water and tried unsuccessfully to dodge a splash she aimed at him.

"You're going to pay for that, Pevensie."

"But you'll have to catch me first, Pevensie!"

She was a quick little squirt - she kept jumping away from his attempts to dunk her. After a minute he gave up and allowed himself to relax into the flow of the water. The expression on her face as she floated on her back was triumphant, but he'd bide his time, pay her back later. He picked up a bulbous curl of the seaweed she'd thrown at him, twirling it in his fingers.

"Luce, you know what these look like? They look like mustaches."

"I know, dummy! You were the one who invented it!"

"Invented what?" He shot her a puzzled look, which she returned.

"You don't remember? They're the same weeds we used to play with - the Merman Disguise game. You just stick some of the bulbs in your nose and leave the ends trailing out. Don't... don't you remember? We played it all the time."

Edmund shook his head and forced out a chuckle, hoping that would reassure her. He waded deeper into the foamy water and looked away. Lucy had fixed him with a hard stare. He dove under a wave and came up shaking water out of his hair. But she was still staring.

"I can't believe - We played it _all the time_, not just when we were kids. Cair Paravel was the only beach where we ever found this kind of seaweed, though - remember Peter marching up to the delegation of mermaids that time, with a bunch of seaweed up his nostrils, and asking if they thought he looked as dashing as a proper mergentleman? How they all got in a tiff and left early, and Susan was completely mortified... You remember, right?"

Edmund swallowed and pressed his lips together tightly. He'd managed to keep it from them this long, but no one had asked him directly until now. He turned to face the open sea, and several waves washed into him as he racked his brain trying to think of a way to stop her from realising what she was about to realise.

"Edmund..." He could barely hear her over the low crash of the waves. "What _do _you remember, Edmund?"

Lucy was swimming next to him now, gently pulling on his elbow. Her face was set, adamant, but he noticed a tiny bit of fear in her eyes. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, turning away from her as she drew in a squeaky gasp.

"Honestly Luce, it's not a big deal."

"It _is_, it _is_ a big deal -"

"No, it's not - some of it, a lot of it is missing now. I can't - I can't remember it. I guess most of it. Ever since we got back, it started fading, and then I just couldn't remember anything, except - ." He couldn't finish the sentence, couldn't even meet her eyes. It was bad enough that she thought he was a two-faced head-case (...whatever that was) without having to know that he remembered none of the details about Narnia except what had happened in a four-and-a-half feet by six-feet-and-two-inches cell.

"It's not a big deal."

"Edmund..." Had her voice just cracked? He didn't want to look at her.

"I didn't lie! I've always remembered sort of the general feeling of it, and anyway I never said I remembered all that stuff, when you all were talking about the old stories and everything. I just nodded like I remembered, because I figured..."

"Oh, you _figured_." He winced at the snarl in her voice. "We thought you didn't want to talk about it because of - because it would be painful for you. We didn't think - I never realised..."

She paused, then began to shout. "We don't keep secrets, Ed! You and me especially! You should have told us - me, you should have told me..."

"Why? How could _you_ have helped?" He splashed deeper into the waves until he was treading water, well away from her. What did she know, anyway? Keeping secrets was about the only thing all the Pevensie siblings had in common - keeping Narnia secret from Finchley, keeping their half-child-half-adult minds secret from their mother and father, keeping each other from knowing anything important by joking it all away, by pretending that they _had_ no secrets...

Lucy had slunk away toward the beach; glancing over his shoulder, he saw her plop down in the shallows, elbows on her knees, palms pressed into her eyes. Oh lord, she was crying. He swam back to shore.

"Lucy..."

She scrubbed her nose and looked away.

"Lucy, I'm sorry, all right?"

She started crying harder. Edmund tried not to roll his eyes.

"Lucy... Lucy, is that Susan?"

She sniffled and glanced up at where he was looking down the beach at a figure a few hundred feet away. It must be Susan; no one else flailed their arms that much when they were running. It wasn't even _possible _to flail around more than she did.

Edmund pulled Lucy to her feet and they began to walk toward Susan at a brisk steady pace. Lucy wasn't crying now, but she kept looking over at him with red-rimmed squinty eyes. He cleared his throat.

"Actually, we probably should have been looking for the others sooner - I don't really know where we are, do you?"

She was silent.

"We must be near Cair Paravel, right? I don't remember it looking like -" Oops, there was that word again. Remembering.

"No, it didn't look like this," she said, and her voice seemed to have recovered most of its normal tone and strength. "Well, not quite like this anyway."

"But we must be near it, because of the seaweed - and it feels familiar, really really familiar. If we're going South right now -"

"Ed, how is it I remember and you don't?"

"Well - well I guess because my head is so full of wisdom and intelligence, and yours has plenty of empty space..."

He dodged left as she swung at his arm, but Susan had just about caught up to them now. She huffed up to them rather red-faced, and stopped with her hands on her knees, breathing so hard she was unable to speak. Edmund observed to himself that it was probably past time Susan began taking more exercise.

Lucy's observation was less private. ""Are you alright, Susan? You look completely flushed."

"No I don't!" Susan snapped, then straightened, flushing even more deeply for some reason. Lucy choked back a laugh. "Er - "I mean yes, yes I'm alright - but - did you hear the cannons?"

"Uh..." Edmund and Lucy exchanged a glance. "No..."

"I heard cannon fire! So I took off running, found you two..."

_Cannon fire?_ Edmund looked at Lucy again, both trying not to let Susan see them smiling. "Susan, you know where we are, right?"

"Of course I do! I mean, we're on Cair Paravel Island -"

"Island!" Lucy yelped.

"-Yes, I know, but I saw the other shore, and that's what _he_ called it..."

"He who? Peter?" Edmund scrutinized his older sister, who was now staring around from the beach to the inland trees.

"Su?" Susan seemed to have forgotten they were there. She blinked and gave Edmund an odd look.

"Where _is_ Peter?" she finally asked them.

"He's not with us," Lucy said. "I thought he'd be with you..."

"We'd better find him, then. Come on, leave your stuff for now... but I think we should be careful, stay out of the open until we know what we're dealing with..."

She set off into the nearest clump of trees, and Edmund exchanged a confused look with Lucy. He felt a bit bad for his little sister - she must have just realised that two of her siblings had basically lost half their brains - and the third was still missing, come to think of it. Missing, and they had no real idea where they were or what was out there...

"Peter brought us here, didn't he? So he must be ok."

Edmund blinked and grinned at her - somehow Lucy always managed to read his thoughts on his face. Lucy beamed at him and set off after Susan. How had she also managed to forget that he'd made her cry not ten minutes before?

He set off after her, but not before stashing a seaweed mustache into his pocket next to the little white pawn. Just in case. He might not remember inventing the Mermaid Mustache game, but that didn't mean he couldn't play it now.

After three minutes of walking they reached dense forest. They were all three barefoot, but the grass was sandy and soft, so they didn't mind much.

Lucy tried again. "Susan - don't you mean Cair Paravel beach? Not island?"

"It's been a long time since it was just a beach, I think. There was a man - there are people here now, and I... I met one, and he said there were - I don't know, he said this place is haunted, I think - "

Edmund and Lucy both had to hotfoot it to keep up with Susan now; she'd been increasing her speed as she began to ramble, her gaze swinging from side to side as though she expected attackers to burst upon them. They were coming up on some old white ruins now, large slabs of stone with weeds springing through every crack. Edmund hopped over a stumpy pillar to get Susan's attention. "Who was it? Who did you meet?"

"It's no one you know, Ed -"

"But is he one of our people?"

"How could he be? All our people are animals, aren't they?"

"But he's not - you know, an enemy...?" She stopped moving abruptly, looking suddenly unsure. This was the problem with Susan taking control; she never stopped second-guessing. Somehow Peter never had that problem - probably because he never bothered much with first-guessing. They all moved closer together, just slightly. A bird chirped loudly, just over their heads, and all three grabbed each other in surprise, scared looks on their faces. The bird chirped again, and Lucy laughed sheepishly at the false alarm. Edmund felt rather stupid. Surely he hadn't always been so chicken? Susan still looked worried.

"I don't understand what you're so worried about," Lucy said, as Susan pulled them on again, a bit more slowly. "There _are_ no cannons in Narnia, right? Aren't we safe here?"

Edmund answered when Susan said nothing. "Well - think about it. If we're in Narnia, then we ought to be at a castle with a harbor and an orchard, with friends around us." He realised belatedly that Lucy knew that he was sort of bluffing about knowing all this; Lucy now knew how often he'd bluffed his way through the conversations they'd shared back in England, but thankfully she didn't alert Susan to it. He continued. "But we're climbing over ruins, on an island covered in forest, and we're either alone or surrounded by strangers... and I'm sure whoever fired those - cannons - was no friend to anyone on this shore."

"And don't forget," Susan said after a few minutes, as they were cresting a small rise. "If we're in Narnia, there should be four of us - "

"But we're only three..." Lucy mumbled softly.

"No we're not -" Edmund interjected, peering ahead down the hill. "Look over there, down by the shore, do you see? Through the trees?"

"Yes, there's something going on there - "

"Bloody hell, what in God's name -"

"Language, Edmund!"

But Edmund was already tearing through the trees toward the southwestern side, the girls somewhere behind him. What he'd seen on the sand had set his heart racing madly. They sprinted down the rise over roots and low tangles of bush until they were standing at the edge of the forest, where a steep wall of rock fell away down to the beach, impeding their path.

Pushing through the branches of the bushes on the cliff's edge, Edmund got his first look at the fiasco taking place down on the beach - just in time to see Peter charge into the middle of it.


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Peter

"We call it a Swimmer Bear, Your Majesty. A few dozen of them live out here in open water. Amphibians. Not friendly in the least. And not small, either."

Peter shot his little companion a look. "I suppose that's - somewhat descriptive."

The bear was nothing like the Bears that Peter had known last time he was in Narnia. For one thing, this Swimmer Bear was easily as big as the Pevensies' house back in Finchley. From where he was crouched behind a log, he could clearly see yellow saltwater stains on its foot-long teeth and claws, despite the lines of bright red gore currently running over them. He was pretty sure there was a string of some poor soul's intestines lodged between the bear's front teeth.

The trick with gory, bloody battles like this one was to think only about movements, and actions, your own and your enemies', and avoid thinking disconcerting words like 'intestines.'

Peter shook his head. Twenty minutes ago, he'd met Reepicheep on this island, which was separated from the mainland by a stretch of a hundred feet or so - Peter could tell this must be where the peninsula had finally succumbed to waves and become an island. Five minutes ago, the Telmarines on the opposite shore had boated across the stretch of water to attack him and Reepicheep (well, assuming they'd even spotted Reepicheep, which would have been impressive at any distance). Three minutes ago, the Swimmer Bear had reared up out of the water and started making sandwiches out of the Telmarines. Peter and Reep had done the sensible thing and dived behind the log for cover; the Telmarines had completely lost their minds in panic. Since it had been twenty Telmarines against two Narnians, Peter was glad enough that the bear had stopped in. He'd have been more glad if Bear Lunchtime weren't quite so gruesome to watch.

As the bear tore an arm off a screaming soldier, Peter made a face at Reepicheep. "Pretty nasty fight."

"A bit one-sided, at this point," the mouse answered.

The last three Telmarines left standing had hopped back into a rowboat and were already half-way to the other shore. The other soldiers were strewn across the shore, moaning, waiting to be eaten.

"Reepicheep, this is disgusting. It's pretty risky for us, fairly impossible odds, but - "

"I've been waiting for you to ask, Sire."

"It'll probably be death by bear claw for us both."

"I can take him with one paw behind my back!" Peter raised an eyebrow at him. "...But if the worst should befall us, know that it's been my great honour to serve you, Your Majesty. The deepest honour any rodent could hope for."

"Reep, you've only just starting serving My Majesty about a quarter of an hour ago."

"All the same."

Peter winced, watching the bear tear off the head of one of the Telmarines. "For Narnia, then?"

"For King and Country!"

Peter and Reepicheep gave each other grave nods, and together they leapt out of the brush, across a stretch of sand, and into a screaming, hurtling attack.

"Oy! Over here, you - you -" Peter wasn't too sure what sort of insulting name would draw the attention of a bear with teeth like knives and paws the size of tabletops, but the noise seemed to have done the trick. The bear lifted its head from the leg of the moaning Telmarine. It sniffed once, then growled at Peter.

"To me, you big ugly brute!" he said, tightening his grasp on his makeshift weapon (a tree branch).

"Hope you aren't addressing me, Your Majesty!" Reepicheep had already darted forward into the bear's path. As the bear lowered its head to charge, Reepicheep leapt nimbly onto its snout and raised his little sword.

Not to be outdone, Peter rushed forward to club the bear in the nose just as Reepicheep strung his sword into the fur just under its eye. The little mouse fell into the sand as the beast flung its head backward and roared in pain. Taking advantage of the bear's confusion, Peter leapt onto its shoulder, ramming his tree branch club against the side of the bear's enormous skull. The bear swiped out blindly with both arms, swinging its head back and forth.

"Woah! Woah woah woah!" By jumping from one shoulder to the other, Peter just managed to dodge its long claws. It was difficult to tell whether the bear was actually injured or just annoyed - either way, its convulsions became more and more frantic. Reepicheep wasn't helping matters much, given that he was using his sword as a lever in order to climb up the bear's side, jabbing it in and jumping upward. The bear bucked back again. Abandoning his tree branch, Peter dug his fingers into the bear's sleek fur to avoid being bucked off backward, but just as he did so, the bear pitched forward, throwing them both face forward into the sand.

Reepicheep recovered first and darted ahead, stabbing at the gaps between the bear's toes. The bear gave another anguished roar - Peter could have sworn he felt the sand shaking underneath his feet - and kicked out at Reepicheep, who went flying in the other direction and lay still on the sand.

Peter growled himself, but he had no time to spare to check up on his friend - the bear was closing in. Rolling to one side, he grabbed for a weapon - the sword of a fallen Telmarine was embedded in the sand only a few feet away - but as his fingers closed on the hilt, he realised too late that the bear was swiping out to flatten him- he wouldn't have time to raise the sword - he flinched as the paw came down -

And was intercepted by another sword. Peter swiveled to face the newcomer, who was now taking the bear on, sword stroke for paw swipe. Where had _he_ come from? - this couldn't be one of the soldiers from the boats, since he wasn't in uniform like the rest, but his dark hair and complexion definitely marked him as a Telmarine. He looked young, and fierce, and fairly reckless.

Whoever he was, at least he wasn't on the bear's side.

Just as Peter came to this conclusion, the bear got lucky. A massive claw caught the young man on his unprotected left side. With a small cry, the stranger collapsed on the sand. The bear moved in to bite.

But Peter was there already, standing over the fallen stranger and stabbing upward into the bear's mouth. He felt bear blood drench his arms as his sword sunk deep, deep into the flesh of the bear's mouth. Instead of rearing back, though, the bear lunged forward, snapping its jaw shut over Peter's sword and shattering it completely. Looking up into its foaming, bloody mouth, Peter only just had time to fall backward - its yellow teeth were inches from his face -

And then an arrow flew over Peter's shoulder and lodged in the center of the bear's forehead. The bear leaned in, slightly cross-eyed. Peter kicked out and backpedaled away.

Another arrow landed squarely next to the other. The bear swayed, swiped one last time with its paws, then groaning, fell dead on the sand.

And on top of Peter's legs. Heavy.

The beach was suddenly still. All he could hear or sense for a moment was his own breathing, and then calling crookedly to Reepicheep, he leaned over to check on the strange Telmarine who had come to his rescue a moment before. The Telmarine was already straightening up, wincing and clutching his bloody side. They nodded at each other, still out of breath.

Peter wriggled out from under the dead bear. He smiled. Victory.

He heard footsteps approaching, then a gruff voice.

"Begging your pardon, Caspian, but what sort of mad idiot heroics do you think you're playing at?"

Peter looked over his shoulder. A grumpy Red Dwarf with bow in hand was giving the stranger next to him a very dark look. "How do you expect me to protect and preserve your livelihood, when you insist on picking fights with every Bear and Worm and Reptile we come across? And Squirrel, for that matter?"

Peter stifled a laugh. "You pick fights with Squirrels?"

"Only the rabid ones..." The stranger - Caspian - frowned petulantly. "They deserve it."

Peter really did laugh then. Getting to his feet, he reached out a hand to help Caspian to stand, but the Dwarf swatted him away and began examining Caspian's wound. Peter turned to check on Reepicheep, but found the Mouse already recovered and perched on the Swimmer Bear's forehead, arms crossed and tapping his tiny paw.

"...alright, Reep?" Peter asked.

The Mouse nodded curtly, scowling at the Dwarf, who glanced up at him. "Still breathing, are you?"

"I didn't need your help, Trumpkin!"

"Looked to me like you did."

"I had him retreating!"

"Yes, he looked terrified. I especially liked your tactic of getting kicked in the head and fainting completely. Very effective."

Indignity didn't seem to agree well with Reepicheep - his spluttering response to Trumpkin was rather squeaky and high-pitched. Turning his back so as not to let the Mouse see him laughing, Peter gave his surroundings an appraising glance.

Their intervention hadn't done the Telmarines much good, unfortunately. There were only a few survivors of the Bear's initial attack, and they were all on the opposite shore now, scurrying away from the boats and makeshift outposts that lined the beach and into the thick forest. Amid the bustle, one man stood leaning against a tree, arms crossed over his chest, in plain view of Peter's company. Even at this distance, it was obvious he was staring at them. It was hard to tell exactly, but the man seemed out of place somehow - certainly he wasn't a Telmarine, judging by the foreign cut of his clothes, and he looked too tall and fair to fit in with the darker race. His features - chiseled jaw, pursed lips, hard eyes - were as still as his stance: Peter watched the man's gaze linger on Caspian, on Trumpkin and Reep and the fallen Bear, and come to rest on Peter himself. They held eye contact for a long moment before the thin man turned and slunk into the shelter of the trees behind him and disappeared.

Interrupting Reepicheep's long-winded monologue (which Trumpkin and Caspian seemed to be ignoring), Peter gestured across the water. "Reep, who was that?"

"Him?" The mouse turned, caught a glimpse of the retreating man, and spat on the ground, making a wet spot a little smaller than a pea appear on the sand. "They call him the White Tiger."

Trumpkin and Caspian shuddered and spat as well. Peter gave them both a look.

"If you knew what he'd done, you would too," Caspian answered his unspoken question.

"Nevermind him," Trumpkin cut in. "Who are _you_, anyway?"

"I'm Peter," he said with a grin, extending his hand.

Caspian frowned. "Peter who? How did you get here, anyway? First you invade my island hideout, then you take on all _my_ enemies, abscond with _my_ rodent, save my life from a mad giant bear -"

"Don't get carried away now, it was sort of a mutual saving -"

"- and you don't even have the decency to carry a title, so now I'm indebted to some lucky commoner -"  
>Trumpkin cleared his throat: " - with rather unfashionable clothing, I might add -"<p>

"Watch it, you two!" Reepicheep sliced forward dramatically, his tone becoming a tiny fierce growl. "_Do you know who this is? Who you're talking to_?"

Peter felt his face get a bit hot. The look of reverence on Reepicheep's tiny face was getting more than a little embarrassing. "It's alright, Reep. They are pretty unfashionable trousers, even where I come from."

"Not for the _High King of Narnia_, they aren't." At these words, Caspian and Trumpkin both froze. Trumpkin gave Peter an evaluative look, and Caspian shot a curious, disbelieving glance at Reepicheep. Clearly enjoying their amazement, the mouse made an elaborate, sweeping bow and addressed his Peter directly. "Perhaps I might have leave to introduce Your Majesty to Prince Caspian the Tenth, formerly of Beaversdam, and Dwarf Trumpkin, formerly of moderately good humour and intelligence -"

The dwarf tossed a rock at the mouse, while Peter made his own bow, trying not to smile at the look of growing incredulity on Caspian's face. The prince opened and closed his mouth several times before speaking. "That's not...You don't mean..."

Reepicheep drew himself up and let his words roll. "Prince Caspian, may I introduce you to your childhood hero, your stay in times of struggle, your anchor in anguish, the figure who is inspiration to all free Narnians, your - "

"King of Narnia, et cetera and so on, Peter farting Pevensie," came Edmund's voice. Peter wheeled around. Edmund was meandering toward them, shaking his head flatly. "Who promised last night that he wasn't going to use the pawn, didn't he?"

"Er... I sort of..."

"Who agreed we'd talk things over with Susan first?"

"Well -"

"And who first thing he does when we're here is pick up a piece of wood and attack a 30-foot tall bear -"

"The bravest king Narnia has ever seen!" Reepicheep interjected. The Pevensies boys turned around. Reepicheep and Trumpkin were both pressing fingers to forehead in a salute; Caspian was struggling to his feet. His look of adulation was undaunted. He managed a shaky bow and spoke in a hushed voice. "My King."

Edmund crossed his arms. "Stupidest king Narnia has ever seen."

Peter decided to change subjects. "Where's Lucy?"

"Coming along behind. She went to see if she couldn't find her cordial. We saw the whole thing from the hilltop, there."

"And Susan?"

"Back in the trees. She's a bit - ah, unenthusiastic, about all the blood and guts around here - I stayed with her as long as I could -"

Caspian's knees collapsed then, and he sank back onto the sand, eyes and mouth open wide. "_Susan_? I've met _Queen Susan_ - and you're Prince Edmund, and Princess Lucy, that's Princess Lucy there -"

Peter snickered and ruffled Edmund's hair. Edmund growled almost as menacingly as the bear had. "It's not _Prince_, it's King, and Queen for Lucy as well - it's not that difficult -"

"- And you're King Peter, you're _High King Peter_ -" Caspian continued without taking any notice of Edmund.

"And a sodding idiot -"

"Idiot or not, I'm at your service, Prince Caspian," Peter spoke over him in a loud voice. "I'm sure my brother would offer the same, if he could locate his manners -"

"And I'd like to offer my services as well!" Lucy shouted, emerged from the woods and trotting down the beach toward them. She waved a glistening bottle of red liquid at them. "Immediately, if you don't mind, Mr. Caspian."

"It's just Caspian," he squeaked, sounding a bit like Reepicheep.

"Alright, Just Caspian, sit down and open up - you just need a drop -"

Peter watched Edmund's eyes narrow. "_I'm _Just Caspian - I mean, Just Edmund -"

"Jealous a bit, Ed?" Peter smirked.

Edmund flushed. "I'm just trying to remem- " He stopped suddenly, eyebrows twitching. There was a half-moment of odd silence.

"...trying to be bossy, aren't you?" Lucy followed up, shooting a dark look at Edmund. "We're up there on the hill, trying to see what's going on, right? And Ed goes '_Don't move_, _and don't faint_,' and takes off running - 'Don't move,' as though I'm just a baby..."

"Just trying to keep you out of trouble!"

"Trying to get into it yourself, you mean, except that Peter and Caspian here beat you to it -"

"For once -" Peter cut in, smirking.

Edmund turned on him then. "_You're_ the one who's always going on about me being a danger to myself - and then you attack a giant Beast, spawn of the Devil himself, for all we know, with a _stick_ for a weapon-"

"He wasn't the Devil's," Trumpkin interrupted, making all three Pevensies realise that their entire argument was being followed by the others like a tennis match. Peter and Edmund turned to him, curious, while Lucy returned to inspecting Caspian's newly-healed chest. "That Beast was one of ours, actually. Well, sort of ours. Come from the line of Talking Beasts, but they went wrong somewhere, turned out brutal, worse than savage. All that type are really only on their own side, but-" (he jerked his thumb at the dead bear) "-_his_ timing was pretty advantageous for you two dunderheads -" (he pointed at Peter and Reepicheep, who squeaked again)" -wandering out here for anyone to see. He must have been excited - all those unsuspecting Telmarines, like Christmas breakfast... He may not have been a Narnian, but at least he wasn't a Telmar."

Even Reepicheep nodded agreement to that.

"All sorted," Lucy proclaimed then, patting Caspian lightly on the head. "Still looking a little peaky, but that's just the shock of things, I imagine."

"How's Susan, anyway?" Peter asked her.

"Still throwing up back there in the bushes. She looked like she might be there a while. I told her to meet us by the Keep Wall."

Keep Wall? Peter started up, then, looking past the beach and the immediate trees for the first time, taking in the details of the far landscape, the ruins rising over the low cliff to the north. They looked awfully familiar... "Hang on - Lucy, do you mean the _Cair Paravel_ Keep Wall?"

"Yes," everyone in the group said together.

"Obviously," Edmund added.

"Takes the long way there, doesn't he?" Trumpkin muttered.

"That's what I've been saying - " Edmund said.

"Ok, enough talk," Peter said, adopting a natural tone of command. "These men might have been our enemies, but they still need proper burial. We'll tend to that, then we'd better scoot up into what's left of the Keep - you have some sort of camp up there?"

Caspian nodded. "In the trees, though. The Keep is haunted."

Reepicheep scoffed, but Trumpkin nodded. "It's true. Used to be a Telmarine camp here, but then about fifteen years ago, couple of ghosts appear out of nowhere in the middle of the night. Covered in blood and making wild noises. Telmarines cleared right off, and no one's been here since."

"We only came here as a last resort," Caspian said. "Those Telmarines have been on our tail since we left the Riga - we had nowhere else to go."

Reepicheep grinned. "Didn't actually expect to meet ghosts though, did we? And now here you all are..." He looked delighted.

"We aren't actual ghosts, you know," said Lucy.

"Like hell you aren't," said Trumpkin. "Beg pardon, Lady. But you lot have been gone from Narnia for - how long now?"

"...well over thirteen centuries," Caspian finished quietly.

Peter's mouth fell open in surprise, as did Lucy's and Edmund's. _What...? _

A long silence came over the group, and for a while they just looked at each other, staggered. Edmund pressed his forehead. Lucy sank to her knees. Peter nearly did the same. The others looked reluctant to say anything.

Finally a sad keening sound reached their ears, but it hadn't come from anyone in the group. Peter turned toward the sound - it had come from one of the Telmarine soldiers.

"Luce, your cordial- "

She blinked at him. He grabbed it from her hand and spun on his heel toward the Telmarines.

He paced through the corpses. It was impossible to tell who was still alive. "Hello? If you can hear me, let me know -"

A short groan answered him, from a man lying facedown a few feet away. Peter knelt beside him. The Telmarine's right leg had been chewed off at the knee, and he was bleeding from a deep wound on his back. Easing the wounded man over, he coaxed the man's mouth open and set a drop of cordial on his tongue.

"There, now..." he soothed, as the soldier gasped and began to tear up. Cordial healed wounds, Peter knew, but it didn't do much for terror, shock, or loss of blood, and it certainly couldn't re-grow a leg. Peter pressed his palm to the older man's forehead, brushing blood from his salt-and-pepper hair. "You'll be alright. Lie still a bit, we'll get you somewhere safe. Reep, will you check the other soldiers, see if there are other survivors?"

The Mouse saluted briskly and raced off to inspect the Telmarines. Trumpkin and Caspian moved to follow him. Peter realised he rather liked this new bunch - quite obedient.

The man in Peter's arms shuddered again.

"You'll be alright," Peter repeated. "What's your name?"

"Whatever you like, milord," he coughed. "I owe you... my life. Do what you like with it now."

Peter was defintely starting to like the inhabitants of this new Narnia, thirteen hundred years or no. "Very kind of you, sir. Let's stick with your original though, shall we?"

"Glozelle then, sir. General Glozelle."


	8. Chapter Seven, Part I

Quick AN: I decided to break up this chapter a bit, as it was getting overly long and unconscionably delayed. I plan to post the rest of it tomorrow... I feel like it's taking me ages to get the story off the ground, so maybe by posting shorter chapters it'll write itself more quickly...? Anyway, short chapters sort of break up the rhythm a little, but since I get stalled on the long ones... Do you readers have a preference at all - shorter and sooner or longer with a bit more flow? Are things moving fast enough for you? Drop me a PM or a review if you have an opinion! And once again, thanks so much for reading; you all are fantastic!

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><p>Chapter Seven: Lucy<p>

Thirteen _hundred_ years...

As soon as she'd arrived at the ruined Keep, racing down the broken stairs to retrieve her cordial and dagger from the little chamber below the Throne Room, she'd realised that a very long time had passed since their reign. What she had never guessed was that it had been centuries. Over a thousand years. More than a millennium.

The thought kept repeating in her head.

Thirteen hundred years.

She knelt motionless in the sand. For several moments she was barely aware of what the others were doing, until an angry voice spoke from just above where she sat.

"You _can't_ be serious," Caspian growled.

Lucy's head shot up. She and Edmund had remained frozen in shock while the others had been inspecting the fallen soldiers, but now she got to her feet. Peter was attempting to hobble past them, supporting a one-legged Telmarine with a blood-stained uniform. The man's lined face was almost green with pain, and his eyes were half-lidded like he was only barely conscious. He looked terrible. Despite his fierce, imposing features, Lucy's heart went out to the poor man.

Caspian, on the other hand, was standing with his arms crossed, blocking Peter's way up the beach. From the look on his face, it seemed he'd passed out of his obedient and awed phase.

"He's sworn fealty to us," Peter declared.

"Not likely!" Trumpkin interjected, moving to Caspian's side. "We kill him now, before he kills us!"

Peter fixed the Dwarf with a hard look. "He swore fealty. He's one of us now."

"Not him!" Caspian shot back. "This man has been hunting us for over a week - chasing us down the river - been on our tail ever since we left Beruna - "

"Literally, in my case!" Reepicheep chirped brightly. "The _scoundrel_ nearly had us cornered, but we slipped away from him, as we always do! Ever since our rebellion began, he's been leading attacks against us, but we Mice are more than a match for such ruffianry -"

"Rebellion?" Edmund spoke up. He was positioning himself between the new Narnians and Lucy, examining Caspian, Trumpkin, and Reepicheep in turn. Lucy hardly noticed, still rubbing her forehead, confused as to how they'd wound up in Narnia thirteen hundred years too late... how they'd wound up here at all, in fact.

"Rebellion. My uncle, Miraz..." Caspian began, turning slightly away from Peter to face the whole group. "He usurped my father's throne. I ran away four years ago, started getting the Narnians together. Miraz and his generals have been trying to stamp us out ever since. We've only just survived, and we do it by showing our enemies the same kindness they show us. We have to kill that man, right now."

The Pevensies exchanged troubled glances - Lucy was certain both her brothers were as astonished as she was that Narnians would suggest murder at all, let alone murder of a wounded and unarmed man - but their faces didn't show it. Edmund's expression was closed and skeptical, Peter's determined.

"We kill him now!" Reepicheep repeated, like he was closing the argument, but started in surprise when Peter spoke: "_No_. That's final."

Glaring at the new Narnians and shaking his head, Peter attempted to push past them toward the forest. Caspian and Trumpkin looked incensed, but it was Edmund who piped up first.

"Hang on, Pete -"

Peter sighed, exasperated, but Edmund pressed on. "Think it through. You don't know this guy at all - the only thing we know is that after years and years of service to Miraz, he just swears fealty to _you_, a total stranger, right on the spot."

"Yeah," Peter said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Edmund cocked an eyebrow. "Well, doesn't that make you at all suspicious?"

"You _would _say that," Peter huffed. "If it were fealty to me or the Bear, which would you choose?"

Edmund opened his mouth, looking delighted, but Peter waved him down. "Never mind. Don't answer that. I need to get him to the Keep, and get back to Susan -"

"And what if he attacks when your guard is down?" Trumpkin cut in. "King Junior here has a point-" Edmund squeaked out an "oi!"; Lucy would have laughed if she hadn't been so disturbed. She didn't want Peter alone with Glozelle, but she certainly didn't want Glozelle left alone with Caspian and the others. Her blood ran cold when Trumpkin spoke again:

"You three don't know Glozelle. You don't know Miraz. But we do. Miraz is cruel. He doesn't just want to beat you. He wants to tear you apart. And this is his right-hand man. Well, one of them at least. We can't afford to trust him, even when he's at our mercy."

Caspian crossed his arms and nodded his assent. Peter wavered, but only for a moment. The man groaned, and Peter shifted his weight slightly, then pressed Caspian out of his way completely.

"Not your mercy, Trumpkin," Peter said, his eyes still locked on Caspian's. "Mine. He's hurt. He needs rest. I'll make sure he answers for his actions. But for now I just need to get him up to the Keep, and find Susan. We shouldn't have left her alone so long."

The tone of Peter's voice and the look on his face were so set that the others backed instinctively out of the way. Trumpkin looked at Caspian, who was wordlessly watching Peter. Finally Caspian gave a short nod. Edmund still looked unhappy at his 'King Junior' title, but nodded as well.

"Good," Peter continued, and suddenly looked directly at Lucy. "You alright, Luce?"

Startled, she nodded, realizing for the first time that she hadn't spoken the entire time. "Fine," she forced out.

"Good," he repeated. "Then Lucy, Caspian, if you would finish inspecting the bodies - Trumpkin, you and Ed head over and pull those boats in, get them up onto dry ground so we can use them later. Reepicheep, you're with me. Be quick, all of you; I'd like to get everyone out of range of those cannons before the Telmarines recover their courage. Meet me up at the Keep when you've finished."

To Lucy's surprise, no one raised any objection to this, though Trumpkin and Caspian still looked slightly sour. They all began to disperse, and Lucy was about to do the same when Peter called out again: "Oh, and Ed - " Edmund turned to look at him, and Peter raised two fingers to his own eyes, then pointed both fingers at Lucy.

"I know, I know!" sighed Edmund, raising his hands. Trumpkin snorted, and the hard look on Caspian's face eased slowly into amusement. Lucy couldn't quite decide if she wanted to roll her eyes or not. She settled with raising her eyebrows at both brothers.

"You be careful too, Pete - " she called at his back, and saw him nod as he half-dragged Glozelle up the beach and into the trees, Reepicheep already chattering at his heels.

Edmund and Trumpkin moved off toward the abandoned boats. For a moment Lucy was alone with Caspian, who gave her a brief, somewhat shy smile. She forced herself to return it, but once he had moved away toward one of the fallen Telmarines, she narrowed her eyes and gave him a sidelong glance.

She could hardly believe that these three Narnians had just asked her brother for a man's death - no, _demanded _that man's death. Every Talking Animal she had ever known had been gentle at heart. Even the fiercest warriors - and their army had been fierce, she remembered, thinking of Oreius, their Centaur war general; Harold, a falcon spy who had reported to Edmund; Jorge and Luvina, Susan's panther bodyguards... Even the fiercest of them had all been fair to their enemies. Never bloodthirsty.

Then again, they'd never had to face usurping uncles and giant swimming bears. Shuddering at the sight of the massive corpse, and wrinkling her nose at the smell, Lucy turned toward the soldier nearest her. How wild was this new Narnia? How much had changed since they'd been gone?

...And how certain could she be that she could trust Caspian?

Sighing, she knelt at the side of a man with a gaping wound to his chest - she could actually see his ribs poking out under the blood and the torn uniform. It made her stomach roil.

Lucy glanced up, suddenly realizing that Peter still had her cordial, but this man was almost certainly already dead. Sighing, she reached out to close his half-lidded eyes, then moved to stand, but before she could go after Peter and the cordial, the man on the ground had grabbed hold of her wrist.

She gasped in surprise. His eyes had opened and he was trying to speak. Leaning in closer, she made out just one word: "...comfort..."

"Shh," she said quietly, trying not to breath deeply; the smell of his breath was terrible. "You'll be alright - Let me just -"

Lucy made to go stand again, but the man's grasp tightened. "Comfort... pretty little girl ... comfort for a dead man -" he growled, grabbing hold of her hair and pulling her face toward his.

She managed a small shriek and jerked back, but despite his wound, his hold was strong - he pulled her in, his mouth inches from hers, and his tongue snaked out toward her -

Her free hand went immediately to the dagger at her side.

"Queen Lucy -" Caspian's urgent voice came from over her shoulder; he was ten feet away - the wounded soldier's gaze flicked toward him - Lucy twisted, struggled harder, but the soldier's grip was white-knuckled -

She had the dagger out in her right hand, but the soldier had let go of her hair; he grabbed her other wrist and held her tight, coughing blood. Caspian stormed in and broke the soldier's hold on Lucy's left wrist, and as she pulled away, the soldier coughed up a great lob of blood and spat it at the prince. It landed on Caspian's arm.

"_Scum_" the soldier managed, before pulling Lucy's dagger hand level with his throat - and the next instant he had forced her arm forward, driving the dagger deep into his neck until her hand met his flesh. She shrieked again, allowing a low, painful, frightened howl to escape her as warm fresh blood covered her hand. The Telmarine seized up and collapsed, dead eyes staring into her.

With a disgusted kick at the fresh corpse, Caspian helped her to her feet. Staggering, she flung herself back from him, shaking her wet hand to rid it of the blood and pushing her mussed hair from her forehead. She collapsed on the sand again a few feet away, taking long, gasping breaths and trying not to sob.

"Everything alright?" Edmund called over his shoulder from half-way down the beach, where he and Trumpkin were heaving a boat up the beach. The Dwarf looked up curiously. They hadn't seen anything, thank God.

Caspian looked at Lucy - she nodded frantically, unable to speak - before calling back to her brother in a forced voice. "Fine." Edmund nodded and returned to his work.

Lucy tried to steady her breathing, but found that she couldn't quite manage to do so. Tears were beginning to roll down her cheeks, which she brushed at angrily.

"Queen Lucy -" Caspian said, crouching in front of her. She turned her face away. "Queen Lucy -"

"It was my hand -" she managed, voice wobbly. "He just grabbed me, I didn't mean to -"

"It wasn't your fault -"

"Why should I believe _you_? You're one of _them_ - you wanted to kill them -"

"Queen Lucy -"

"This isn't Narnia," she croaked, shaking. "This isn't _my _Narnia. This place is chaos." She couldn't help it now - the tears streamed down her face, and she buried her head in her arms.

"Lucy. Listen to me." Caspian's voice had lost all traces of awkwardness and taken on the ring of earnestness she'd often heard in Peter's voice. She was so surprised, she finally looked up into his face. There was a nervous wrinkle in his forehead, but when he spoke there was also a sad, experienced honesty in his dark eyes that made her certain he spoke from his heart.

"This is war we're in, and evil things happen in war. It was a foul act. But it was _his _foul act." Taking her bloodied hand in his, he pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and began to wipe the blood from her fingers. "This isn't the Narnia you wanted - but this Narnia still needs you. You're strong. Your hands are still clean. Your _heart _is still clean."

Slowly she drew in a long, difficult breath. Caspian was still staring into her eyes, his face inches from hers, expression anxious for her response, almost desperate, even the tiniest bit lonely - and in that moment Lucy knew somehow that she would never distrust him again.

She smiled, and he smiled back. His expression relaxing, he used one thumb to push a final tear from her eye. She scrubbed at her face and sniffed one more time, then smiled more broadly and squeezed his hand.

"You're not too bad yourself, either," she said finally, pushing her hair behind her ear.

This made him grin boyishly. He pushed his own hair out of his face and got to his feet, pulling her to hers as well. She didn't quite feel back to normal, but she suddenly felt much lighter. Glancing around, though, she realized there was no way she could bring herself to inspect any of the other soldiers after what had just happened, but Caspian seemed to have read her mind.

"Stay here, I'll finish," he ordered, then passed her dagger to her, which she proceeded to clean on her skirt, steadying herself with long even breaths while he made a quick survey of the other Telmarines.

Edmund and Trumpkin had pulled the last boat onto dry ground now, and were striding back towards them. "All dead?" Edmund called.

"All dead," Caspian replied, circling back around to return to Lucy's side. She gave him a grateful look.

"Safe and sound?" asked the Dwarf.

"Thanks to Prince Charming," Lucy said, squeezing Caspian's arm. Edmund's eyebrows shot up.

"And to milady's bravery," Caspian bellowed dramatically, making her a perfect court bow, which she returned with a low curtsey (made only somewhat awkward by the fact that she was wearing her English girl dress, not the swirling skirts of a full-grown Queen). They both chuckled lightly.

Trumpkin said "Hm!" and Edmund's eyebrows flew even higher, which made them her and Caspian laugh harder once they noticed.

"Come along, good Dwarf, up to the Keep - let's introduce these good folk to our secret hideout."

"Highness, there's nothing secret about it, not with that blabbermouth of a Mouse around..."

Caspian and Trumpkin began to march up the beach, gesturing for the two Pevensies to follow. Lucy made to leave, but Edmund grabbed her arm.

"Lucy, dare I ask - were you flirting with him just now?" Edmund hooked a thumb in the direction Caspian had just taken and narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

"So what if I was?" she said in her best attempt at a matter-of-fact tone.

Edmund gave her this look that said 'he's twice your age and you're barely in the double digits.' Lucy just rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Ed! We were _just _talking about this with you, in England, flirting with those girls -"

"It's different for me!"

"How?" she shot.

"Well - I've already had - you know, changes... in my body..."

She immediately held up a hand. "Let's just cut it short right there. I'd rather not hear any more."

He sighed. "...Good Lord."


	9. Chapter Seven, Part II

AN: It's a chapter about Feelings! This one's a bit choppy? It took me like six months to finish the shading on everyone's upper lips. Next one will feature more exciting escapades, promise.

PS: The inspiration for the whole story, but particularly this chapter comes from this article here: reporting/2009/03/30/090330fa_fact_gawande.

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><p>Chapter Seven Part II: Lucy<p>

"Are you hungry?"

"Bloody starving."

Trumpkin tossed them both a couple of small green apples. It had taken them what felt like a year to climb up to the top of the hill, where Caspian and his troops had made their hideout. Edmund and Lucy had immediately sprawled out under the wild remains of an orchard; Caspian was already showing Peter the underground caverns, and Susan was helping to bind Glozelle's leg, since he'd refused to take any cordial ('witch's brew', is what he had called it).

"Apples for breakfast, lunch, and dinner these days," Trumpkin continued. "There's a well around the corner if you're thirsty."

"Delicious!" Lucy said after polished her apple in her sleeve. Edmund pressed his lips together.

"Pass," he said, pushing his apple into her hand.

"You're not hungry?"

"Not for healthy food."

Lucy rolled her eyes and turned back to where Susan was settling into their makeshift camp, all their belongings stuck under an apple tree in the corner. Trumpkin was pretending to be busy showing Reepicheep where to stand scout for the evening watch, but Lucy could see him watching the ex-Telmarine general out of the corner of his eye.

"Hey! Hey, Ed!"

Peter was striding toward them out of the cavern entrance, his eyes bright and (Lucy caught her breath) his old familiar sword in his right hand, Edmund's in his left. He tossed Edmund's sword hilt-first at him, which Edmund just barely caught.

"Peter, is that Rhindon?" Lucy gasped.

"Stuck in a storage bins in the basement," Peter smiled widely as he began to twirl Rhindon back and forth, then gave a few strong slashes at the air. It had been ages since he'd looked so excited about anything – Lucy's heart felt a little lighter just watching him at it. Edmund, on the other hand, had gotten a very sour look on his face, which Peter hadn't noticed yet.

"Come on, let's just fight really quick!" Peter whined, tapping Edmund with the flat of his sword.

Edmund just stared down at his own sword. "Where did you find this?"

"Down in the lower chamber. Just there," he said, pointing at the little doorway that opened onto the stairs that led to the storeroom. Caspian was just emerging from them now, puffing up the stairs.

"Those chests were sealed shut for God only knows how long!" Caspian exclaimed, blinking in the sunlight. "How did you get them open?"

Peter grinned and turned back to Edmund. "Come on, Ed, little bashing of heads, for old times' sake –"

But Edmund still had that funny black expression on his face. Without a word, he dropped his sword in the grass and brushed past them down the stairs. Peter watched him go, confusion overcoming his features as he gave Lucy a questioning glance. She shrugged at him, biting her lip – she briefly pondered telling Peter about Edmund's memory loss, but she knew Edmund would hate it if she did. Damn his independent streak, keeping a thing like that secret from them all for so long.

Resolving to talk things over with Edmund later, she pulled Peter toward Susan. "You know what this means, don't you? My cordial, your swords?"

"We're at Cair Paravel. Or what's left of it."

"Bingo, Susan, nail on the head," Lucy sauced. Susan rolled her eyes, but Caspian still looked confused.

"Cair Paravel – like in the stories?"

The Pevensies nodded at him.

"The castle was here? And your sword – I mean, wow…"

"Oh yeah," Peter nodded again, swining Rhindon up and over his head with practiced grace, unnecessarily so in Lucy's opinion. "It's the real deal, bud."

So much for grace.

Edmund popped his head back up from the cellar, carrying a few dusty green bottles. "Is thirteen hundred years long enough to properly age a bottle of wine, do you think?"

Lucy shrugged. "Won't know until we try"

"I think first we should make some plans," Susan frowned. "We've got no castle. No Cair Paravel. Just ruins."

"Sorry…" Caspian said, and he sounded it. "But here – see how close we are to the cove?"

They all leaned in a bit closer to the map Caspian was drawing in the dirt. Trumpkin waddled over to inspect the wine while Caspian dropped pebbles on his map.

"This is us, then, in the Cair Paravel ruins, usually known as Ghost Island, due to the numerous ghost sightings. We need to swim across the channel, sneak past my uncle's armies, and head north past Beruna in order to get back to the How, where my forces are stationed."

"Tricky," Peter frowned, rubbing his lower lip with his forefinger. "What do you think, Ed? You were always better with maps and planning and – what's it called, logarithmics?"

"Logistics," Edmund corrected, but his voice sounded a bit strangled.

"Yeah, that," Peter continued. "So, if the troops are at Beaversdam, do we go up through Glasswater canyon, or cut around them using the tributary?"

There was a long pause in place of a reply. Edmund was staring at the map, mouth opening and closing; the others must have assumed he was thinking over the different routes, but one glance at his face was enough to assure Lucy of what the real problem was.

He couldn't remember.

Lucy cleared her throat quickly and jabbed at a random point in the dirt. "Uh, why don't we go this way instead?"

"Because that would put us South of Calormene, Luce," Peter said, almost holding back a laugh.

"Oh – well, I meant – erm…"

"What about the cliffs?" Susan asked, her lips pursed as she studied the dirt map. "Go over _and_ around, following the line of the ocean?"

"That's not bad," Caspian said, and Peter nodded.

"They won't be watching the rocks, and there's few enough we'll be able to sneak past them and meet our reinforcements along the way."

"Alright, it's settled then. I'll send Reepicheep at first light to get word to the Princess –"

Peter held up his hand. "Excuse me, there's a Princess involved?"

"Certainly – my sister, Princess Caspina, commanding the troops in my absence –"

"Why did your mom name you both exactly the same –" Peter began, but Caspian spoke over him, his voice proud.

"Of course, I'll be king, once Miraz is gone, not Caspina – "

"Except for me, you mean," Peter cut in immediately. "I'll be _High_ King, and then Edmund, and _then_ you –"

Caspian's eyes narrowed further with each 'then'.

Lucy spoke before he could. "Or not, you know, Peter, you could give someone else a turn. Like me, I haven't had a go yet –"

"Well yeah, but you're not really the gender for it –"

"AND this isn't really the time to squabble over it," Susan dictated, her voice booming over Caspian, Peter, and Lucy, who had all been about to speak. "We have bigger problems, like getting past the cannons on the beach, for example."

"Cannons? Huh?" Peter interjected.

"Yeah, I've been wondering, what are cannons doing in Narnia?" Lucy piped in.

Caspian gasped and Trumpkin looked affronted.

"What!" the dwarf exclaimed. "You've never 'eard – well, I'll be blasted –"

"Even I know that one," Glozelle called from his seat at the gate.

Caspian face lit up. Trumpkin whistled cheerfully. There was a moment's pause. Then all three burst into song, even Trumpkin.

"_Rifle shot across the worlds _

_When chasers come to Narni-aha,_

_Racing from the water's curls_

_When cannons fire in Narnia-ah!"_

It was exceptionally off tune; Lucy could tell that much without ever even having heard the song before. Caspian plucked the bottles of wine from where Edmund had deposited them earlier; he and Trumpkin swayed off toward Glozelle, helping their now-cheerful prisoner limp out toward the fire pit overlooking the summit. The sound of their singing slowly faded off as they rounded the corner out of sight, and then there was silence as the rest of them just stared at the gate.

"What the hell?" Lucy mused aloud. Peter snickered, but Susan socked her on the back of the head.

"Language, Luce!"

"Yeah, but that wasn't much help, was it?" Lucy asked. The two oldest Pevensies shook their heads, all three utterly bewildered by Caspian's little song and dance. "He just stole our wine, too!"

Lucy had intended to get Edmund back in the conversation here, but Edmund was still rolling a pebble under his foot, glowering down blackly at the remains of the dirt map.

"What's eating him?" Susan asked Lucy quietly, but before she could reply, Peter was tugging both girls back toward the looming shelter of the half-dead apple tree where they'd left their things.

"Ok, everyone," Peter announced,. "Now that we've gotten rid of those lunatics, time for a quick Pevensie Powwow."

The girls crouched next to him immediately, heads so close together that Susan and Lucy knocked temples twice.

"Ow, Susan –"

"Well if you weren't leaning in so much –"

"Ed?" Peter frowned. "Powwow over here, commencing now!"

Edmund's jaw was locked in a deeply scowl, but with all three of them giving him their most impatient eyebrows, he eventually slunk over to join them.

"Here's _our_ plan," Peter pronounced. "We meet up with Caspian's rebel group at the How. Take on the Telmarines and drive them out of our home. Once Caspian's uncle is dead, we settle the Who Will Be King issue. Are you with me?"

"Yes," Lucy said.

"Sounds a little sneaky," Susan sighed, sounding tired already.

"It sounds like you're out of your barking mind," Edmund snapped. "What do you know about any of this stuff, killing uncles and wars and so on?"

"You can't kill a war, Ed –"

"No shut up, Susan," Edmund stood to leave, but Peter grabbed his arm to keep him from walking off.

"Sit down and apologize, Ed –"

"Get off my arm –"

"Ed, stop –" Lucy tried, but both boys ignored the girls completely. Edmund kept trying to pull his arm away, and Peter kept trying to shove Edmund back into the powwow.

"Just sit down and we can sort this –"

"No – you – can't," Edmund snapped again, his voice beginning to shake furiously as he tried to wrench his arm out of Peter's grasp. "You can't – do any of this –"

"Calm down, you're getting worked up for nothing –"

"No I'm not, I'm the only one here who –" Edmund stamped on Peter's foot.

"OW!"

"Get off my _arm_, you stupid – "

"Ed!" Peter barked, offended. "I'm the King, and I'll decide –"

"You're not the goddamn king, alright, you're just a stupid kid –"

_Oh shit,_ Lucy thought.  
>The effect was instantaneous: Peter dropped his hold and completely wilted, expression and posture slinking into his Wounded Puppy face; Susan swelled up imperiously and hissed in a way that was scarily snakelike; Lucy (for lack of better ideas) stuck her hands into the center of the huddle and flapped them around like she was trying to put out a fire. Edmund swiveled on his heel and stomped off out of the camp. He was gone before Susan had finished her hiss.<p>

_Oh shit oh shit_. Why did Edmund have to choose now to have a fit? That choice of words, in particular –

Lucy snapped into action before finishing her thought. Peter was still speechless; Lucy shot an urgent look at Susan and jerked her head toward their older brother. An unspoken agreement that had been in practice so long neither of them had to think twice about it: Susan would take the nearest raincloud, and Lucy would go after the other. Forcing herself to smile, Lucy squeezed Peter's arm; he jumped at her touch.

"Let me talk to him, ok?"

She darted off without waiting for an answer; she knew it would be a long time coming. As she passed the broken orchard gate, she bent and picked up Edmund's sword from where it was lying abandoned. Caspian, Trumpkin and Glozelle had stopped singing and shot her curious looks, but she ignored them.

"Where'd he go?"

Trumpkin jerked his thumb over his shoulder, towards the rocks overlooking the eastern beach. She didn't wait for further instruction.

She rounded the bend in the hilly path, dragging the sword along with her; Edmund was a good fifty feet ahead of her, plowing past the gnarled ruins and nearly out of sight. Breaking into a jog, Lucy shouted at him to stop, but he didn't glance back. She followed him for three or four minutes, still calling at his back, before he finally slowed and sat down on a flat rock overlooking the sea.

Lucy sighed, slowing to a walk and glaring at the back of his stubborn head. It would just be one of those prickly days, that was all.

She seated herself on a flat rock a few feet away from Edmund's, separated from him by a tiny stream that flowed down past them to waterfall off the rocks and away toward the ocean. It was scenic and still – too calm, given how fraught the last few hours had been. She knew they both felt it.

"I brought you a friend," she said, setting Edmund's sword down in the heathery grass at her feet.

He ignored her.

"I know you're angry about this whole thing, Ed, but it doesn't help to blame it on your sword, you know."

He glanced at the sword and his scowl deepened.

Lucy had expected this. She was never totally sure of what went on in Edmund's head, but his stormy anger was easy enough to predict, after all these years. It would be her job to settle him down, get him comfortable talking, and win him over again. It was always her job, actually.

For several minutes they didn't say anything. The day had been warm, but the evening wind from the ocean was beginning to pick up as the sun slipped lower in the sky. She started idly braiding her hair, in the old way. Edmund didn't even look at her when she accidentally knotted it in several places and started cursing under her breath. She could outwait him, though, just watching the wind push his hair off his forehead, and pulling the lopsided strands of her braid away from her face when it obstructed her view.

Finally he said, "Are you going to tell them?"

She sighed again.

"Of course not."

"Then what –"

"I want you to tell _me."_

He shot her an annoyed look.

"Tell you what?"

"_All_ of it," she implored, letting the braid fall out as she pressed his arm lightly. "Please, Edmund. You've remembered one or two things already, haven't you? Maybe if we just talk it over, we could get some of it back."

This was too honest, she was sure; if there was one thing Edmund hated, it was earnest, heartfelt conversation. Lucy bit her lip, but figured she had no choice but to press on as gently as she could.

"Please just tell me what you're thinking about right now."

He started to smirk, and she knew that reaction: some sort of flip joke was on its way, and once it arrived it'd be all she would get. Cutting him off, she said, "No don't. You can't hide that way from me. Anyone else, but not me."

That got a full frown out of him. He finally faced at her, his expression hard to read, but at least not as irate as before.

"Come on, just try," Lucy pleaded. "What you remember, what you maybe wish you _didn't_ remember, what you've just remembered since we got here..."

"There's nothing -"

"Yes there is."

"...Well, it's not too good," he mumbled, his stare returning to his knees.

"Tell me anyway. From the start." She began to list what she knew. "We went to Professor Kirke's house. We got to Narnia through the wardrobe. First me, then you, then all four of us. We were together, and then..." she trailed off, waiting for him to speak.

It took so long she started to rebraid her hair, figuring he'd clammed up for good, and startling when Edmund spoke again, even though his voice was quiet.

"...And then I left you. I went to the Witch."

"And then...?"

"And then I told her where you three were," he said; he was finally focusing on the conversation. "I thought she'd be pleased, but she put me in the cell –" he broke off.

"Just tell me, Ed. What else?"

"She left me there. I was alone there, for weeks, except for – when she would come back."

Lucy dropped her tone even lower to match his. "How did it feel?"

"Cold," he muttered, taking long pauses between the words. "Hungry. Stupid, angry, bored. Worried. Worried sick, really."

He squinted in the dying light and began to chew on a fingernail.

"I couldn't sleep. That made it worse – being alone and not knowing what had happened outside, or how long I'd been stuck inside. Mostly I just remember feeling lonely. No news, no one to talk to, except when the guards stopped in. I remember picking fights with them, just so that they'd yell at me, even if they beat me up or anything – I just didn't want them to put me back in the cell by myself." He forced half a laugh at this, pulling his fingernail away from his mouth.

"And?" she prodded, twining the last of her braid into place.

"And that's the last I remember."

That wasn't good enough. Lucy frowned at him, crossing her legs and settling her chin on her hand.

"And…?"

He glanced at her, his expression pained.

"And I remember begging her to let me out. I screamed and cried. She laughed at me."

Lucy watched him draw in a shuddering breath. He noticed her watching, and immediately scowled and finished his story in a rush.

"And if you're wondering whether I'm embarrassed about that, the answer is yes, ok, so no need to drag it out and everything. But that's all of it. That's all of my Narnian memories. So now you know, alright?" His voice took on the high, rambling tone she recognised from the rare moments when he was truly nervous. "You three have loads of memories about powwows, and Glasswater whatever, and stories about balls, and battles, and beavers, and all those years of ruling a kingdom together. I've got Edmund's 67 Days in a Jail Cell. So there you go, you can – I don't know, laugh, or tell the others, or send me to a mental institution, if they even have those here, or I don't know what else –"

"Edmund, I'm not going to do any of that –"

"But you won't be able to help it, Luce," he whined. "I didn't tell you about the memories disappearing because – because I didn't want you all to treat me different – feel sorry for me or anything. I don't want that, ok? I don't need – I don't want – " he took a large swallow; she could actually see it traveling down the tense muscles in his throat.

"I just want things to be normal with us," he finished, pulling his legs toward his chest, face red and jaw set. Closing up again.

Lucy pressed her lips together and arranged her legs more comfortably on the rock a couple of times as she weighed which words to use next. Finally she spoke, quietly and firmly.

"But Edmund, you don't _remember_ what's normal between us. You only remember what Narnia was at the very beginning, before any of this –" she gestured widely to their surroundings.

"I _know _I don't remember, you don't have to rub it in –"

"That's not what I mean. I'm saying this isn't the first time you've told me about what happened to you."

He looked up sharply.

"Try to remember. What happened afterwards. Peter, Susan, and I, we'd been battling for weeks, pushing the Witch's forces back into a retreat. Well, it was mostly Peter and his men doing the battling, but we were all involved. Everyone said the Witch had killed you as soon as she saw you, everyone thought you'd been dead the whole time…"

_Even us_, she almost added, before biting it back.

"Finally Oreius got word of where they were keeping you – of course he didn't say, at first, because he didn't want to get our hopes up. It had been months –"

"Nine weeks."

"And that morning when you first came back into camp –" she paused involuntarily, a lump forming in her throat.

How had Edmund forgotten _that_ day? It was fixed in her mind precisely, every sight and sound and sensation. The cool morning air. The embroidery on the dress she'd been wearing. The grass under her bare feet. How bright the sun had been, and how warm on her skin. Spotting a couple of dim figures emerging from the forest at the edge of the camp. The way her heart had jumped and her face flushed with amazement and excitement once she realized who was walking toward her.

The starved look in Edmund's eyes, and how small he had become since she'd seen him last. He was just a child. Before the wardrobe, Lucy had always thought of Edmund as bigger and stronger and braver – Lord knew he'd always done his best to give her that impression, calling her a crybaby and pushing her around and always insisting he was right about everything – but when he'd walked out of that forest, crushing her to his chest and burying his face in her hair, that was the first time she'd ever seen him as a child, just as small and scared as she was. She'd seen right away that it had been as painful for him to be away from her as it had been for her to be away from him. That he'd missed all three of them like they'd missed him. That he'd been just as terrified at losing them as they'd been at losing him. More so, as it turned out. Even Susan and Peter hadn't quite seen that.

He had just been a small, scared child, and that damn Witch had –

Lucy clenched and unclenched her fingers, pushing the thought from her mind. It still made her furious, but there was no point fixating on it now. Right now, Edmund was staring blankly at her, waiting for her to continue, his expression a little embarrassed, but curious now, too. She cleared her throat.

"We'd all thought you were dead, but there you were, strolling down into camp, looking completely terrible of course –but at least you were alive," she beamed, trying her best to laugh lightly and flicking the tears from her face. "The others weren't sure at first how to treat you, because you were being so strong –"

Edmund snorted, but she pressed on.

"You were, Ed, you didn't complain or anything, even when some of the other Narnians were talking behind your back about how you had – anyway, you just jumped right into training with Peter and the others, and pretty soon you were as good as any of them. You proved it at Beruna."

She paused, recollecting.

"I remember Susan worrying that you would become revengeful, filled with hate. Peter just said he hoped you'd stay angry at the Witch instead of at _him_. But you weren't hateful or angry. You chose to be strong, Ed."

He was silent, his face turned away again.

"Don't you remember at all?" she prodded again.

Still no answer.

She tried a different tack, prefacing it with another easy laugh.

"Actually, when you _first_ got back, you were just frantic to talk to us all, just prattle really. I've never seen you so talkative. And hungry. I think you had Mrs. Beaver buttering toast for you for about three days straight."

He smirked, and she pressed on, becoming more animated.

"We were all so relieved to have you back, and you were in such good spirits after the first shock passed – you kept making up stupid nicknames for everyone, and starting card games in the dead of night, and doing silly celebratory dances when you won –"

"Ah, come on –"

"No, really, you did, and in the middle of a war, mind you. Everyone was trying to be serious and grim, but you just made us all laugh, all the time."

She smiled at the memory, and he snorted again, but in a nice way. His gaze was fixed on her now, definitely curious.

"It wasn't always easy," she continued, lowering her voice again. "You scared us pretty often – you had these odd little moments where you'd just freeze up, or you'd walk off in the middle of a conversation, or we'd wake up in the morning and find out you hadn't slept all night. Or you'd get angry over something tiny. Or you'd get confused about something simple… It happened all the time, even years later. I think you remember some of that, don't you?"

He looked down at his feet then back up at her, but still didn't reply, so she spoke again.

"It set Peter's teeth on edge, trying to watch you all the time, just in case. Still does, actually. Susan would sort of pry in, try to get you to admit you needed someone to help you. But I just waited, and eventually you came to me. After one of those incidents, one that was particularly bad –" she winced slightly; even now the memory stung – "You came to me and you told me everything that the Witch had done to you."

Edmund looked away slowly, then put his head in his hands. This was usually a clear signal that he wanted to be alone, but she had one more thing she had to make sure he heard from her. Crossing over to the rock where he sat, she settled in next to him, facing the water. She pressed one hand onto his arm and with the other pulled Edmund's sword toward them.

"Do you know why she put you away like that, all by yourself? Mr. Tumnus told me later on. When you first got there, she put you in with the other prisoners, and half her dungeon just melted away and half her prisoners attacked their guards. We were the Narnian Spring, remember that? Just by being there, by being in sight of the other prisoners, you were an insurrection. You talked to them, and they rioted against the Witch because of you. The reason she hated you so much because they loved you, Ed. Even then, you weren't just a kid. You were a king."

The breeze was picking up again, and Edmund's deep sigh blended seamlessly with the sound of the wind in the grass. He was annoyingly hard to read; Lucy couldn't quite tell if it was an angry sigh or a satisfied one or what. She shivered a bit; while they'd been sitting there, the sun had disappeared behind a wisp of purple clouds and was now peeking back out to shine red on the rocks in front of them before setting completely.

Edmund gave a sudden shake of his head and glanced out toward the ocean again, bringing one hand to his mouth to chew on his nails again. An old, incurable habit. When he spoke, she barely caught the words.

"Did I apologize?"

Lucy opened her mouth to reply, but paused first to give her brother a long look. "Do you remember?"

"…Yes. After the battle."

"Right," she said, hoping her tone was encouraging instead of patronizing. "Things got easier after the battle – releasing all that physical tension, I think. You told me once that you thought it was kind of an expiation. You said you felt clean afterwards, in your mind. And a few long talks with Aslan helped with that as well."

At that, his face darkened completely, frustration overwhelming his features. "_Why_ can't I remember Aslan?"

Suddenly something clicked in Lucy's head.

"Because you don't need to."

"What?" he barked. "Those memories – they're more important than the other stuff –"

"But Ed, think about it. When we came back, none of us had enough room up here –" she tapped her forehead, "to fit _all_ our memories. Peter's forgotten loads of things that happened before we ever went to Narnia, have you noticed? He doesn't care, says he doesn't even want to remember it. I think Susan's forgotten plenty of things from Narnia and from England, but she's too proud to admit it. She still remembers being born, I think."

Edmund gave her a quick wry smile, which she returned while she talked.

"And I'm the same, I only remember a handful of things from before Narnia, but I _do _remember deciding that I'd rather remember Narnia then the rest of it. That first night we got back, I prayed hard so I'd never forget it…"

Edmund's mouth twisted, but Lucy pressed on.

"We became children again, sort of. You just couldn't hold all those memories in your head anymore. There just wasn't room. So you must have picked out the most important part –"

"Are you saying it's my own fault?" he interrupted angrily. "Believe me, I've been trying to forget it –"

"But you can't, can you? It's _who you are_."

Edmund looked ready to argue the point, but Lucy pressed on right away. The words tumbled out in a long flow; she wasn't even sure where they were coming from, but she was sure she was right.

"You remembered what you _needed_ to remember. You may not like it, but your experience in that prison was essential to your whole personality, Ed. Still is. Everything you became later came from that suffering, pivoted around it."

She nudged Edmund's sword back toward him, pressing his arm, and this time he didn't push her away.

"Maybe _you_ don't think you can be a King anymore, but I know you can. It always came from that painful part inside you. And that's still there."

For a long moment neither of them said anything. Lucy glanced at him, suddenly nervous.

"Well? What do you think?"

"I think…." he began. "I think that was oracular, for a nine year old."

She grinned at him. "I'm very wise for my age."

He smiled and leaned back, finally relaxing his shoulders as he ran his fingers lightly over the hilt of his sword. "Well, you're either astonishingly astute or a brilliant faker, and either way you'll make a really good psychoanalyst someday."

"Oh stop, I'm blushing."

"It's just nice to know how seriously we've all been underestimating you for all these years."

Lucy huffed. "That's what I keep telling you guys, but does anyone ever listen?"

They both laughed, and then she pulled her sweater more closely around her shoulders.

"Let's head back – it's getting dark –" Edmund said, pulling her to her feet. "Um, one more thing – " he asked as they set off for camp. "Luce, will you…"

"…yes?"

He sighed, definitely a sigh of resignation this time. "…Will you help me?"

"Sure," she smiled. "For payment."

"I _knew _you were going to say that," he muttered, pushing her lightly.

"Help with what?"

"Can you just tell me what it was like, back then? I'll keep trying to remember, but just help me out once in a while."

"That's not fair, I can't charge you for that."

"Well, I'll make it up to you somehow –" he grinned.

"Can you maybe start by playing nice with Susan and Peter?"

Then grin disappeared at once and was replaced with an insulted look. "It's not my fault if they –"

"I know, but just try, alright? And you can't call him a kid."

"It's the truth –"

"I _know_, but you just can't, ok?" Lucy felt her face grow a bit cold. "It has to do with –"

She choked. That was one memory she couldn't revisit yet, and if Edmund didn't remember, she wasn't about to remind him. Edmund was giving her a questioning glance, so she hurried along again, eager to switch topics.

"Just don't, that's all. You _do_ remember a bit more since we got here, though, don't you?"

"Yeah, a bit."

"But still no seaweed mustaches."

His face became resolved. "I'll just have to make some new memories there."

"I'll be looking forward to it," Lucy said, waving up at Caspian, who had spotted them from the cliff. Edmund groaned.

"Quick, put your angry face back on – pretend like you're really upset with me -"

"Why?"

"Anything to avoid another round of The Cannons of Narnia, or whatever that was..."


End file.
